Why Do We Fall?
by darkangel1211
Summary: Sequel to SoaA - Sherlock and John thought it was all over, The Final Problem, until Sherlock starts having strange visions. Their investigation into them reveals that Moriarty has left them a gift but it isn't what they were expecting. WIP, Reviews welcomed, Part 4 uploaded 19/12/2012 ON HOLD
1. Why Do We Fall? Part One

Why Do We Fall?

**Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock or any of the characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just too inspired by the show that I had to borrow them.**

**Sequel to 'SoaA': Sherlock and John thought it was all over, The Final Problem, until Sherlock starts having strange visions that he can't explain. Their investigation into them reveals that Moriarty has left them a gift but it isn't what they were expecting. A gift where the lines of right and wrong blur, morals and ethics are chains, and when a new danger arises to threaten them they are faced with a decision; to preserve or destroy. If only it were that simple.**

**A/N: I'd like to say a big thank you to the people who have offered me their support during my writing of both SoaA and WDWF? - if I could give you all biscuits I would but I'll have to make do with showering you with my endless gratitude! :-)**

**Also, thank you for your patience whilst I've been rewriting this. I hope you enjoy it!**

Part One

It took all of two minutes for Sherlock to decide that, actually, the living room floor was far too cramped a space for what had been fairly strenuous physical activity between two grown men, and it certainly wasn't the most comfortable place one could find oneself in post-coital slumber. Neither of these points seemed to deter the man who was currently fast asleep on his shoulder, oblivious to the outside world with his arms and legs wrapped securely around Sherlock's body to prevent him from moving. Lying there on the floor, completely bare of clothing with the warmth of John's body pressed against his right side, Sherlock also came to the decision that, although none of his previous thoughts had been nullified in any way, there wasn't a single place on Earth where he would rather be.

It had only been a few hours since his laptop had entered its hibernation state, the playlist he'd added to iTunes having long gone silent, the closing violins of 'This Bitter Earth' lost in those intense moments where Sherlock's memory had been both the sharpest it had ever been and also the foggiest. He remembered John's breakdown clearly; the tears splashing on his neck where John had pressed his face into the groove of Sherlock's shoulder; the trembling of John's body as Sherlock had held him close when all the strength John possessed had drained from him. The whispered words from John that he'd so badly needed to hear for over two and half years, remembering with perfect clarity the shapes John's lips had made against his own when John had spoken the words.

_'I have been forgiven.' _

Sherlock could scarcely believe it, even now, after everything that had happened between them in the last few hours. John had accepted his apology for the deceit that he'd been forced to commit. Granted, the deception had been necessary for it had saved John's life, but Sherlock had correctly assumed that the cost of faking his suicide to the people he loved would be too great a burden and, by the time he'd come to that conclusion, he was already far too immersed in Moriarty's web to untangle himself from it. John's drawings in the oak box were proof enough of that assumption and something that Sherlock would need to discuss with him when the appropriate time presented itself. For now, he was content with the crick in his neck and the aches in the small of his back and his shoulders, thinking that perhaps they could have put a bit more effort in to make it to a bed, but really too comfortable in every other sense to want to move just yet. They weren't cold despite the December temperatures, having stoked the fireplace when a natural break appeared between their activities, the carpet also providing a little cushioning against the wooden floor (which would have played havoc with their bodies given the length of time they'd been lying on it if the fabric hadn't been there), and making the after-glow much more pleasant. John seemed ok with the position at least, and Sherlock had had the forethought to grab the union jack pillow from John's chair so he would have something to rest his head on when John had pressed down on top of him earlier…

From his angle on the floor, Sherlock could see the pictures John had drawn of him on the wall and he had been looking at them while he waited for John to wake up. He hadn't been studying them; that activity demanded a certain level of concentration whereupon the minute differences in the drawings would have been noted and compared to the one just next to it, or, indeed, to the drawings that were in John's bedroom upstairs, assessing how they reflected the firelight and how that varied to the sunlight that he'd seen them in earlier that day, and Sherlock could admit that he didn't possess that focus just now. He merely looking at them, absorbing them for the artwork that they were and not aiming to praise or denounce any particular part of them. His mind was engrossed with more pressing matters.

John was naked beside him; that thought on its own was very important and demanded his immediate attention. The retired army doctor, serial dater and self-proclaimed heterosexual had not a stitch on his body and was pressed full-length against Sherlock, who was also naked, and seemed perfectly content with the situation judging by how quickly he'd fallen asleep after his exhaustion prevented them from continuing. Sherlock directed his thoughts to the way they were lying together, wanting to memorise every moment that he could of this outwardly fragile peace; he was on his back with the front of John's body turned into his right side, John having placed his right arm over Sherlock's chest, his left arm stretched out behind his back to provide stability, the same purpose used for his right leg where it was lifted up and over Sherlock's hips with his left stretched out and touching Sherlock's right leg. A very intimate position, overall, and more than apt at displaying the familiarity that two people could have together; this understanding being shown by the close proximity that Sherlock was unfamiliar with, and therefore should have felt intrusive, yet somehow felt warm and innocent of intent.

Briefly, he glanced down at where John's head was pillowed on his shoulder, watched the way John's eyes moved beneath his eyelids as they followed the vision of his dreams, his breathing easy and measured in his chest. The sight was something that he knew he would never tire of looking at, however Sherlock knew by looking the clock on the wall that John had been asleep for twenty-two minutes, fifteen seconds and, based on his own body's aches, he calculated that it would be roughly another three minutes at the most before John's subconscious would make him shift in his sleep, just enough to ease the tension and numbness at the points of pressure in his body.

So Sherlock stayed still lest he disturb his… what? Flatmate? Partner? Was this just some tryst between them that would be forgotten about when dawn's light shone through their street-side windows, or were they something more now? Given the evidence before him, Sherlock decided that this couldn't be just some fling. John, where he'd had the opportunity to sleep at a date's house, had always pressed ahead with a relationship and tried to make it work despite Sherlock's interference with cases and requests for assistance, something which had caused the demise of those relationships when John wasn't able to manage the demands placed upon him by Sherlock and the woman he'd been dating at the time. If Sherlock took those instances as an indication of John's natural behaviour when pursuing a mate, then that would mean that John had effectively made the decision to spend the night with him and that John would, habitually, be seeking a relationship with Sherlock in a possible future together.

Before Sherlock had met John, he had often dismissed the idea of relationships as messy, emotional things that played people as skilfully as he played his violin. He'd considered the reasons why people pursued them so ardently, that the emotions one felt during the course of that relationship were a positive influence, not a negative one, but had never been consumed with the need that would drive him towards finding a companion, never thought that, one day, the subject he had studied so vigorously would suddenly turn on him, refusing him the right to deny his natural existence as a human being first and transport second.

Companion…

_'A person or animal with whom one spends a lot of time or with whom one travels. A person who shares the experiences of another, especially when these are unpleasant or unwelcome.'_

An interesting word to attribute to his John, for the experiences they'd had together would certainly be labelled as unpleasant or unwelcome by people who were strictly bystanders, on the outside looking in if given the opportunity to do so. Fortunately, a majority of their most dangerous work had taken place outside of the public eye and was not in the rumour mill for speculation which just left the labels that they had for themselves, ones that they wanted to be known by together rather than the other way around.

_'"I'd be lost without my blogger."' _

Words which were as true now as they were when he'd first said them and now with more meaning given the history which lay between them. Two and a half years of separation had driven home the point of why Sherlock had taken John on as a flatmate to start with, requiring more than a wall (or a skull) to rebound his ideas off of. He had needed another person who had enough common sense in their brain to take his thoughts, his theories, and come to their own conclusions because every once in a while Sherlock required another's intuition to deduce the facts which, for one reason or another, had chosen to remain elusive. It had been John's decision to aid his own therapy by publicising their adventures on the Internet, creating his own label and one that had been more than appropriate at the time, given how quickly Sherlock had started calling him it and how John had taken it on-board, eager with anticipation when he was officially something more than another idiot in the world of the great Sherlock Holmes.

Blogger, however, was not a word that Sherlock would use to describe John now, not when the man was lying naked beside him, his entire being so completely trusting and loyal almost to a fault that it had saved Sherlock's life as well as putting John's own in danger on more than one occasion. Not that John had complained too loudly on the second count. He had been seeking it, truth be told, subconsciously trying to detect the subtle undercurrent of threat which lurked in the dark corners and alleys of London's streets; he just hadn't known it until Sherlock had shown him, in a twenty-four hour span, just what excitement there was to be had in a thriving metropolis, which, despite outward appearances, could be just as dangerous as Afghanistan's front line. You just had to know where to look.

Now though… Now, the very thought of John's life being in any danger sent a pang through Sherlock's stomach, a sinking feeling that abruptly made his breath catch in his throat though he was careful to keep the rest of his body still as the reaction sent a wave through his nervous system, mindful of where his hands were on John's body. He had one hand buried in John's hair, cupping the back of his skull, the occipital bone, with his fingers gently stroking through the strands which John had neglected to keep trimmed just recently, the longest hairs now reaching to just past his ear-lobes and making it easier for Sherlock's fingers to glide through them. His other hand, his left, was curled around the hand John had placed on his chest which had been placed directly over his heart, as though John was making sure Sherlock was still alive by feeling the rhythmic _thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump_ beneath his fingertips. Both were places on John's body that were sensitive to touch and therefore would have felt the slight tensing of Sherlock's hands had he not stopped himself from completing the action in time.

Even with the strange feeling that had settled deep in his gut, making his emotions flutter like the nervous twitch of a butterfly's wings, his logical mind knew that it was merely a chemical reaction by his body to signal his distress at the thought of John coming to harm. Reason dictated that, as he'd had numerous experiences with chemicals before, it should be a simple matter to introduce other agents to the reactions his body was having and therefore decrease, if not abolish, the awkward feeling altogether. In practice, however, this theory was encountering problems; if he imagined John smiling or laughing, his emotional state reminded him that, if John was fatally injured, he would never see that smile or hear that laugh ever again. When Sherlock brought the images of their physical union to the forefront of his mind, again those feelings prodded at him, repeating that he would never feel John's body against his own, flush with exertion, and would never again experience the urgent heat in his groin which had demanded appeasement with a ferocity that had shaken him down to his core.

After several attempts to quell the anxiety that his thoughts had inflicted on him, and finding himself hopelessly useless at it, the primal part of his brain decided to take over, shifting his body underneath John's weight and rolling them both until they lay on their sides facing each other, much to John's disgruntlement at being forced from a position that he was clearly comfortable in.

"Wha… Sherl-umph!"

They were the only sounds to leave John's mouth when Sherlock finally pressed his lips to John's own, stopping the question in its tracks as he slid his arms around John's torso, tightening his hold until they were flush against each other from chest to thigh, legs tangled between them in as much the same way as Sherlock was attempting to mimic with the rhythmic thrusting of his tongue into John's mouth.

And oh, that was so much _better_, feeling John alive in his hands, responsive to his touch and hearing John voice his pleasure at Sherlock's method of awakening him. Little moans vibrated in John's throat before being passed onto Sherlock between their joined mouths, seeking Sherlock's own murmurs of desire in this intimate dance that Sherlock was becoming marvellously adept in, given his very limited experience in the area and a small fact that John had taken great delight in once he had divulged it.

It would be wrong to say that he hadn't had any experience at all in carnal affairs; hypothesises were nothing if they didn't have the proof required to back them up and his own ideas of what sex could be like, taking into account the hormones released during such an exercise and so on, wouldn't have meant a thing if he couldn't experience the outcome first hand. Mycroft had underestimated him wholeheartedly during the Baskerville case because, quite rightly, Sherlock had stated that sex didn't bother him and it really didn't. Despite that, he'd only had two experiences regarding sex in his adult life, once with a woman and once with a man, because the hypothesis required testing from both genders and Sherlock himself had never been gender specific. Orgasm was orgasm at the end of it all and the focus hadn't been on the physical properties of his completion. He knew what happened to a man's body when he ejaculated; there was hardly any notable difference between the male mechanics of the human race so that wasn't the issue. The strength of his climax, however, had had some experimentation involved with his experiences of sexual encounters amounting to the following; a hand-job and a blow-job from the man, duly reciprocated in the case of the hand-job, and the

same from the woman, not taking into account his own forays into masturbation which had ended as soon as he'd gathered all the data he could reasonably collect from it.

He knew that these experiences were often a regular occurrence between London's general population with establishments throughout the city offering far more than just a sneaky suck in a glory-hole bar, but he had made the decision that there was only so far he was willing to go with someone who was there purely for scientific study. His mother had taught him better than that and, even though he had regarded the tradition of saving one's virginity for their eventual marriage with indifference, some of his mother's sensibilities had been drummed into him. This particular one meant that he would at least have to wait to find the right individual before sharing any more of himself with them, more than that person would be willing to take care of in any regard, so he would need to be careful in any future ventures.

_"Hearts are fragile, Sherlock, so don't be so quick to throw your own at the first person who gives you more than an appreciative look."_

Right now, with John in his arms and the both of them focussed on kissing each other absolutely senseless, he realised that there had been some truth to his mother's words. There wasn't anyone else on the planet who he wanted to share this with, all this warmth and bare flesh and fluids and moans and sensations. When he had finally given himself to John after John's breakdown, when he'd been right at his very peak, the whole experience had nearly brought tears to his eyes, it had been so overwhelming. His body flushed hot with the memory of John's hand on their shafts as he had stroked them both together through Sherlock's climax, driven them both forward until John had reached his own orgasm, somehow still aware enough to keep his hand moving on them although their bodies had shaken and trembled with the contractions coursing through them, leaving behind a tingling in Sherlock's limbs that had taken a while to fade with their panting loud in the room while they recovered. No words had been spoken between them during that brief lull, although Sherlock's shirt had been used to wipe them both clean with smooth, gentle strokes on sensitive flesh, causing small aftershocks in their bodies when the soft fabric teased at already sore nerve-endings. He remembered pulling John down to him after the shirt had been put to one side, sliding his hands across all those secret and hidden places which had never been his to witness before and had been suddenly granted access to, an access that he had taken full advantage of and under which John had been very happy to oblige.

He thought it interesting to note that, contrary to what he believed would happen between them when they'd both ended up on the living room floor for the first time, John had correctly guessed that Sherlock was still, by a large percentage, a virgin and had decided to keep him that way for another time. 'Another time' hadn't been given any specifics, nothing that Sherlock could take away and store for later retrieval; he could only assume that it was John's own moral judgement that was stalling what he hoped would be an inevitability between them but, given his experience, he felt that it was best if he didn't say anything for the time being. John was clearly waiting for something, something which either of them had yet to provide. Maybe it was a sense of stability, or perhaps John wanted to wait until the first night of passion had passed and, once they were both a little clearer in their minds, they could make an informed decision as to what was going to happen. There hadn't been any discussion of who was going to do what; whether anal sex would be involved or if it was too soon for that, but Sherlock understood that sharing any form of physical bond with John was, at the very least, a step up from that they'd been before and therefore was to be viewed as progress.

Sherlock gentled the kiss, taking John's bottom lip between his teeth for an instant to lightly tug at it before swiping his tongue along its length, John whimpering at the loss of the feeling when Sherlock released him. At some point during the kiss the both of them had closed their eyes, so when Sherlock opened his to gaze at John, he saw that the other man had yet to open his own, a look of bliss on his face before his eyes blinked open, the pupil focussing to the light in the room as John returned Sherlock's gaze. When John's eyes had adjusted, and he could see Sherlock clearly in the firelight, he smiled; a full-blown one that reached his eyes and suffused Sherlock's entire body with a light, almost weightless feeling. The last time he'd seen John smile like that had been before Moriarty's influence on their lives, when the thrill of the chase and being together had been enough to bring it out in all its glory. It was very good to see it again.

"Well, that's the best wake-up call I've had in a while," John said, bringing his right hand up to stroke along Sherlock's cheek.

Sherlock tightened his hold on John's body as he lifted his own hand up and placed it on top of John's, keeping their hands against his face as he absorbed everything he could of the man in front of him. "I needed it," he replied, unwilling to divulge his reasons for the rather passionate exchange between them just yet.

John chuckled, a light sound, his smile somehow becoming brighter with the noise that the laughter produced. "Feel free to wake me up anytime you like if it's going to be like that."

"Even if it's for a case at three in the morning?"

"Yes, even for a case at three in the morning."

Sherlock had his doubts that John would be ok with being woken up in that fashion only to be dragged out of bed for a case that would likely be solved within the first five minutes of them being there, if the case turned out to be exceptionally dull, but he would hold John to his agreement as it meant the other man was more than happy for their elevated status from best friends to continue. The realisation chased away some of the niggling worries that Sherlock had had about their future together and it was enough for him to park the other, more stubborn concerns that he had, allowing his own smile to form so that John would see it.

It was a natural reaction at that point to pull each other back into another kiss, perhaps leading onto more if John were so inclined (and by the twitching against his thigh, Sherlock deduced that it would be a very welcome course of action indeed), but before their lips could meet John's mobile phone rang, the noise of the jingle John had chosen as his ringtone a loud and unwanted sound in the room. Both of them winced, and then laughed together when they saw the other had made the same action, before John separated himself from Sherlock's hold to retrieve his mobile which was on the desk next to Sherlock's laptop. Sherlock remained on the floor, watching John's body as the flames in the hearth flickered the light onto John's skin, his muscles shifting with his movements as he looked at who was calling him before accepting it.

"Hello, Greg! How are you? Yes, I'm fine, why?" John paused, listening to Lestrade's response. "Oh, was that tonight? Damn I'm sorry, I completely forgot." Another pause. "Are you still there? What time is it? Bugger. Well, I really can't come down now, I've… No, I'm not with a woman!" John paused again; rolling his eyes at Sherlock in what Sherlock assumed was tolerance at Lestrade's gentle ribbing of his doctor. "What? You want to come here? To the flat?"

John threw Sherlock a look of what he was meant to assume was worry, considering Sherlock's currently deceased status which had yet to be rectified and the fact that they hadn't gotten around to discussing when Sherlock would reveal himself to the people in their lives beyond Mrs Hudson. Seeing his partner's predicament and knowing that Lestrade would eventually come to the flat anyway to make sure John was all right, he nodded his agreement, a quick jerk of his head to show that it was ok and Lestrade could come round.

Sherlock's assent at Lestrade's arrival didn't quell the anxious look on John's face like he thought it would though, although the other man was careful not to let that concern filter through into his voice. "No, no, I'm fine with it. So when can I expect you? Ok, can you come round at half ten? That's not too late, is it?" John flicked his eyes to the clock on the wall, seeing that the time was at a quarter to ten, plenty of time for the both of them to have a quick shower and ready themselves for what was bound to be an interesting evening. "Ok, no worries. I'll see you then."

John hung up and looked down at his phone for a moment before placing it on the desk again and looking down at where Sherlock was still gloriously splayed across the floor. "It looks like we're going to have to cut this one short, love," he said softly, walking over to him and kneeling down. "As much as I loathe seeing a stitch of clothing on your body, Lestrade will have a fit if he walks into the flat and finds us like this."

Sherlock smiled; his imagination more than adequate at guessing exactly what Lestrade's reaction would be. "He suspected our relationship was like this long before Moriarty's involvement, John. I don't think he would be surprised in the slightest."

"Well I'd much rather not give the Yard any more food for fodder than I have to." John stood up, reaching a hand out towards Sherlock in a clear attempt to get him on his feet. "Come on, you. Time for a shower."

* * *

It was just after a quarter past ten in the evening and the flat found both Sherlock and John sitting in their respective chairs in the living room with John nursing a cup of tea, Sherlock having decided to skip one of his own beverages and choosing to take a sip of John's when the other man offered it to him. Despite the growing tension on John's part with the anticipation of Lestrade's arrival, the atmosphere of the apartment had a very homely feel to it; they'd finished clearing up the mess that had been inspired by Sherlock's musical re-enactment of the Fall, finding the clothes that had been hastily torn off of their bodies when their desire for one another had overwhelmed the patience required to remove them, and had moved the furniture back to its rightful place from where it had been pushed out of the way to make room for them on the floor. Everything felt as though it had gone back to normal, but Sherlock knew that it was mostly a façade. He had a pretty good idea of what would happen once Lestrade reached the flat and saw him there, very much alive and in good health despite the reports of his demise at Bart's, but it was out of his hands for now. He couldn't very well act on something that hadn't happened yet, but it didn't hurt to be prepared for what would be the most probable outcome of his meeting with the DI.

His mind recalled the shower that both John and he had partaken in shortly after John's phone call with Lestrade, and took pleasure in the fact that it had been a welcome source of relaxation on muscles that had grown tense from the length of time that Sherlock had been lying on the living room floor. The feeling of the water flowing over his body, through his hair and across his skin still danced across his nerves in sensorial memory, although he had been a little disappointed that John hadn't joined him in the cubicle that was quite big enough for two people. The other man had denied Sherlock's statement that John didn't want to help him wash his back, instead replying that if he did get into the shower with a hot, wet and soapy Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade would have to wait for another half hour at least before they emerged from the bathroom.

Behind where Sherlock's hands were steepled in front of his face, his elbows on the arm rests of his chair, a small smile graced his lips at the memory. To all outward appearances, John was still very much enamoured with Sherlock and his transport, enough that he had to adhere to strict discipline when the situation called for it lest they both slip into the sinfully bad habit of falling into bed together and not leaving until food, water and natural bodily functions demanded a respite. The thought made him ridiculously happy and, while his annoyance at having their fun cut short was still burning in the back of his mind, the burn was that of an ember, the tinder having failed to catch since his annoyance had come from a source that had been short-lived, especially when faced with John's good humour at the situation.

They were now both dressed in a more respectable fashion; they had clothes on, for a start, with Sherlock in his usual Spencer-Hart attire and John in his casual, but extremely favoured by Sherlock, jumper and jeans. There wasn't any further evidence in the flat of their fervent exchanges prior to Lestrade's phone call but it didn't stop John from glancing around the flat occasionally, constantly checking that all indications of their new relationship were properly hidden until the time was right for them to reveal it.

Sherlock reminded himself that John wasn't checking because he was ashamed of it, what they had done; it was more because they would have enough trouble on their plates with the current state of affairs over Sherlock's revival and John had been adamant that he wanted to wait until things had quietened down before stirring things up all over again. His words, not Sherlock's, but the logic behind it was sound. John had had enough trouble with the Press to last a lifetime after Sherlock had jumped, so it made perfect sense that he wanted to keep something as personal as a relationship discreet. To John, relationships were between two people and were therefore a private matter, hence his complete irritation whenever Sherlock had chosen to get involved in any of his previous ones with women.

As for Sherlock, he was fighting the impulse in his blood to announce his new bond with John from the rooftop of their building, claiming John as his own in a more public and permanent way than the already fading bite marks that he'd left on the tender skin on the inside of John's thighs, made there and not on his neck at John's request, which would have been much more prominent and delicious to gaze upon. The marks would need to be replaced, of course, but Sherlock couldn't drown out the excitement he felt at this turn of events, having always hoped for it and now it was here. Even the sound of the doorbell at the bottom of the stairs didn't halt the fire in his veins, watching from above his fingers as John disappeared out the door, listening to his footsteps as they echoed down the staircase and hearing the distinct click of the front door being opened, both Lestrade's and John's voices filtering through the walls to where he was patiently waiting.

He couldn't, however, deny the feeling of hesitance that crept into his body when Lestrade began to follow John up the stairs, asking how John was faring and whether he'd been on any dates with any gorgeous women recently, the latter of which John heartily denounced before stopping the two of them outside of the entrance to the flat.

"Greg, I wasn't completely honest with you earlier when I told you that I didn't have someone with me," John said.

"I knew it!" Lestrade's voice was triumphant and a little slurred; he'd been at The Six Bells on the High Street and had had four pints of stout before toasting himself with a shot of vodka and leaving the establishment, a usual haunt for the detective and one that John had frequented with Lestrade when he'd been in one of his better moods. Lestrade had caught a cab over to Baker Street after phoning John, hence his rather speedy arrival; in his current condition, walking from the pub to their address would have taken more than a few hours. "Who is the lucky girl? Is she still here?" Lestrade asked.

"Wait, Greg, just listen to me, ok, I need to tell you something. There is someone inside that you haven't seen for a long time and it looks like they're going to be around for a while, so I need you to keep a clear head on this one for me."

There was a pause; evidently Greg had been thinking over John's words because his reply was laced with concern and he sounded like he was starting to sober up. "John, what are you talking about? Who is in your flat?"

Sherlock pushed himself up from his seat and walked to the middle of the living room, his instinct prompting him to make the move when his gut told him that John's news wasn't going to be taken well and to walk away from any objects that could cause him or Lestrade injury in case a tussle ensued. He hoped that it wouldn't come to that, but Lestrade's drinking was a factor that he hadn't considered when giving the other man the news of his plan to outwit Moriarty and it introduced another set of variables that he and John would need to take responsibility for if Lestrade wasn't in his right frame of mind.

"It's probably better if I show you. You won't believe it otherwise." John preceded Lestrade into the flat, his eyes seeking out his partner and nodding once when he saw the new position Sherlock had taken, his eyes showing his approval at Sherlock's forethought as the soldier in John calculated the same outcomes that Sherlock had come to himself.

Lestrade came in soon after, in the process of taking his coat off and hanging it up on the hook next to the door, brushing the flecks of snow off of it before turning around and looking for the person that John had been warning him about. Silence took over the flat as Lestrade's eyes met Sherlock's own, his mouth falling open when he realised who was standing in front of him, his disbelief apparent when he shut his eyes for a moment and then reopened them, checking that his eyes hadn't suddenly stopped working. "Ok, I've been drugged." Lestrade turned to John, pointing at the entrance to the flat. "There was a dodgy bloke looking at me funny while I was at The Six Bells, I knew it! I swear he paid the barman to slip something into my vodka!"

"Greg, calm down." John had his hands held out towards Lestrade in a placating manner. "You've not been drugged and you're not drunk."

"Then why am I seeing a dead man in your flat!" Lestrade pointed at Sherlock, his eyes blazing in his sockets. "Sherlock Holmes is dead, John, and having another man dress up like him to appease your grief is not going to do you any favours! Who the hell is this guy anyway?"

The last was directed at Sherlock who hadn't moved throughout the whole exchange, waiting to see which direction Lestrade's emotions would take now. Disbelief was still strong, but Sherlock wasn't counting on that one to leave anytime soon. Anger was a close second and relief was obviously a long way off. No, something else would need to be done if Lestrade was going to be convinced of his very real existence and he knew only one way of doing so.

He held a hand up to stop the two men talking, directing their attention from each other until they were focussed on him, and made a show of looking Lestrade up and down, taking in all the details of his attire before he began to speak. "You've recently remarried; your previous wife was cheating on you with your son's football coach and you divorced her at the end of two-thousand and twelve. Your new wife is a piano teacher and you've both recently come into some money, I estimate between ten or eleven thousand pounds. You've not lost a family member who left you that sort of money in their Will, so this was possibly from the lucky ticket that she bought two months after your wedding. You've used the money to do renovations on your house; you had to add an extension to the property for…" He paused and glanced over Lestrade's form again, looking for the clue. "Ah, so your wife is pregnant … and she's having a girl. I believe congratulations are in order, Lestrade."

The shock that appeared on Lestrade's face was a look that Sherlock didn't think he would ever get tired of seeing, but his satisfaction at having caused it was short-lived. He really should have seen it coming, had even taken measures in case it did happen, but when Lestrade's fist connected with the soft tissue underneath the right side of his jaw (which was powerful enough, incidentally, to quite literally knock him off his feet), the only thought he had at that point was, _'Idiot,'_ before his head hit the floor and sent him into unconsciousness.

* * *

It felt like he was dreaming. He couldn't really say for sure if that was what was actually happening to him because he'd never been in a put into a position where he did remember any of his dreams. Sleep, what little he had of it, was deep enough that he could never recall precisely when he drifted off and only became aware of his surroundings again once he'd woken up. Anything else that lay between those two points clearly wasn't worth remembering; otherwise he would have stored the data in his Mind Palace and would have likely been forced to delete it the very next morning.

Sherlock gave himself a mental shake, willing his concentration back into focus. Lestrade must have hit him harder than he thought; his mind was a jumble of incoherency that whirled around his brain in a circling motion, making him feel dizzy and forcing a groan from his throat when the sensation caused a rolling in his gut that usually preceded nausea and vomiting. He raised his hands to his face, rubbing at his closed eyes and using the action to help centre himself before finally opening them and taking in his environment.

He was no longer in the flat; that much was obvious at least. He was lying down on a hard surface and when he reached a hand down to touch the floor he realised it was made of metal. Steel, to be exact, the surface ribbed with little bumps that served as grips for the soles of a person's shoes in an aid to prevent them from slipping on it. There wasn't the much softer carpet that should have been in the living room, nor were there any sounds of the fire in the hearth or of the warmth which should have been emanating from its centre. In fact, the air around him was cold, almost bitter, with his breath fanning out in front of him when he exhaled which also told him that, if he could see his own breath, there was enough light in the room for him to be able to see beyond his natural lung capacity.

Sherlock kept his head on the floor for a moment longer, letting his eyes adjust to the minimal light that there was and reaching out with his other senses to gather as much data as possible. The light wasn't from a steady source and the bulb itself was above his head on the right hand side. It was flickering slightly, not too often to cause a huge disturbance, but an annoyance nonetheless. He rolled over to his left in an effort block out some of the interference from the flickering, using his hands to push himself up to a half-sitting position so that he was resting on his elbows, and continued to look around the area for any clues that would tell him exactly where his mind had placed him.

He was on a platform in a corner of a room which was just slightly larger than his own bedroom but with a much higher ceiling. The light above his head was the only light that was on in the room, which left a large proportion of the area in a darkness that was only alleviated briefly when the flickering cast shadows on nearby surfaces, the likes of which he'd only ever seen before when he'd been in exile.

The room was deserted and, once he managed to get a proper look, Sherlock saw that it was also a complete mess; not the ordered mess of his flat, the organised chaos where he knew exactly where everything was, but a mess which had all the signs of someone frantically searching for something to keep or destroy. He didn't have enough information to decipher exactly what it was that that person was trying to achieve, or whether there had been more than one individual at work that had caused the disarray, but it did make him wonder exactly what it was that had been so important.

Gingerly, Sherlock tested the muscles in his legs and was relieved to find them in working order, pushing himself up onto his knees before slowly rising to a standing position, reaching out with his left hand to clasp at the barrier of the platform to steady himself against any leftover disorientation. Once he had regained his focus, he walked to the edge of the platform where five steps were leading down into the room below, his shoes clanking on the metal beneath him as he descended.

There were only six desks in the room below the platform, their drawers open and their contents scattered across the floor; notepads, pens, pencils, treasury tags, individual sheets of white copier paper, staplers, staple removers; almost anything a person could ask for or require in an office and not something that should have just been left out at the end of a working day. The computers were switched off and there wasn't any sign of personal memorabilia from any of the staff members surrounding the monitors or on the desks themselves, a normal sight to be had in almost any workplace and something that caught Sherlock's attention more than the state of the room itself.

No trinkets in a workplace meant that there usually wasn't any tolerance for mixing business with pleasure and, more often than not, it meant that the work itself left a lot to be desired as a career choice.

Sherlock walked to the other side of the room, fishing out his mobile from his pocket and switching on the screen to provide him with an impromptu torch, using the screen's light to search for another light source which would give him a better vantage of where he was, finally locating some switches in the far left corner. He flicked them up, one at a time, and with each click the lights overhead came to life, banishing the shadows and allowing him to see all of the room without hindrance. It was indeed larger than his bedroom; it was larger than the flat in fact, and appeared to be only an area of study. The walls themselves were grey in colour and they had lighter square patches on them which differed from the main colour, the darker area around them showing the areas where posters and charts had once been but had now been removed. When he checked the stationary there weren't any logos or designs which hinted at what company had used the building and, when he tried to switch on the monitor for a computer, it was out of power.

Undeterred, he continued to analyse his surroundings, pocketing his mobile as he did so and searching every corner of the room. It was during his search that he heard another sound, one that he had not made himself and he realised with a dawning unease that the noise was coming from behind him. Sherlock stopped, forcing himself to keep calm despite his nerves and listened intently to the noise, detecting the rhythmic inhale and exhale of another person's breathing. The breaths were not elevated, nor were they slow. They were measured, not too deep, and judging from the lack of any other sounds, the other person hadn't made any motion towards Sherlock even though they were able to see him clearly.

Slowly, so as not to cause any alarm, Sherlock turned around until he was looking behind him and was more than a little surprised at what he saw. There was another person behind him, but they weren't anything like what he had been expecting to see. Maybe a man with a gun aimed at his head, or a staff member who had been left behind in the confusion, but certainly not the man he saw in front of him now.

He couldn't have been older than nineteen at the most, yet that wasn't the detail which struck Sherlock the hardest. The eyes that met Sherlock's own were calm; there wasn't any muscle tension around the eye sockets, nor was there any in the man's overall posture. Outwardly, he wasn't showing signs of distress in any form and it allowed Sherlock a minute to absorb the appearance of the other, a quick appraisal that lasted only a few seconds. Small details filtered through, such as the colour of the man's hair which was a light brown, the way his hair had been cut in messy bangs that fell into his eyes which were a bright blue, not quite light enough for an ice blue, but not far off either. Physically, the muscle definition on the man's body was admirable; he was lean in his figure and was in good shape, like he'd been going to a gym regularly and showing all the characteristics of someone who kept themselves in excellent health despite his skin pallor which was almost white, although this may have been down to the lighting of the room. But it wasn't these facts, these details that concerned Sherlock the most. It was the fact that the younger man was almost bare of clothing.

He had a pair of white boxer-briefs on to cover his genitals, but other than that there wasn't any other article of fabric on his person and the temperature in the room couldn't have been more than five degrees at its warmest. When he noticed the trembling that suffused the figure in front of him, he acted on an impulse and removed his suit jacket, walking towards the other man while keeping his movements slow and steady though the man didn't show any nervousness as the distance closed between them. When he was close enough, Sherlock wrapped the man in his jacket, taking hold of his hands and pushing them through the sleeves until his upper torso was covered by the material, his skin cool to the touch but hopefully to become warmer now as the residual heat from Sherlock's own body was passed on through the jacket.

The young man's eyes never left Sherlock's all the while Sherlock was dressing him and it was only when he'd finished that he began to move. It was almost discernible at first, but gradually he began to move closer to Sherlock, lifting his right hand up towards Sherlock's face and stopping just short of touching him. Sherlock didn't move away from the close proximity, allowing it for the moment while the other man was gaining his bearings. He wondered if the man was a mute, or whether he had any cognitive function whatsoever because, up until this point, he hadn't shown any signs that Sherlock existed at all even though they'd been looking at each for the last five minutes or so.

Gently, the man's fingers lowered to Sherlock's face, the pressure light, drifting his index finger down Sherlock's cheek before coming to rest on a spot below his jaw, and it was then that Sherlock realised he had placed his finger over the bruise which was forming from Lestrade's blow to him earlier, but he wasn't pressing down on it. His eyes reflected concern over the injury, his brows furrowing slightly and leaning his head closer to Sherlock's neck to inspect the wound. Before long, the man's eyes met Sherlock's again and the hand which was by Sherlock's neck slid around to the back of his head, fingers sliding through his curls and lightly tugging them, his face reflecting his surprise at the feel of the strands springing back into shape underneath his fingertips.

Sherlock allowed the exploration for another breath before reaching up and pulling the man's hand from his neck, keeping their hands joined together between them when a panicked expression flitted across the man's face. "What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked with his voice soft. "Do you know where we are?"

Although Sherlock knew the man had heard the words, for there wasn't any other sounds in the room beside the ones they made themselves, he didn't answer the questions, instead keeping his gaze fixed on their joined hands with a look of cautious wonder on his face. The trembling that Sherlock had spotted previously was slowly fading from the hand clasped in his own and as the silence stretched between them, a feeling of mild relaxation began to fill his very being, its source unknown. "What's your name?" Sherlock tried again.

As before there was no answer to his question but the young man lifted his eyes to Sherlock's again, his look intense, sharpening the colour of his eyes to a deeper hue. His mouth firmed into a line, determination settling in his features, before he raised his hand to the back of Sherlock's neck again and pulled him down until their foreheads were pressed against each other, the man's other hand reaching around Sherlock's waist and tugging until their bodies were also together. Sherlock's first instinct was to shove the other man away from him but he stopped the action, forcing himself to take notice of the situation here. There wasn't anything remotely sexual about this position; it seemed that this person was merely seeking comfort, though for what reason he couldn't be sure and he was reluctant to deprive the man of it. That and the breaths of the other had become more laboured till they were now halted, gasping, and his body trembled again but for an entirely different reason.

Sherlock didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around the shorter man, pulling him as close as their current position would allow as the breathing turned into small sobs, his tears running down his cheeks and onto his collar bones which hadn't been covered by the jacket. "It's ok," he soothed him, gently rubbing a hand up and down the man's back, a decision forming and taking shape inside his mind. "I'm going to get you out of here, ok. We'll leave this place and go back to Baker Street. My partner is a doctor, he can help you."

He wasn't sure if the other man understood any of his words, but the meaning behind them must have been recognized because the hand that had been wrapped around his waist came up and cupped Sherlock's right cheek temporarily before sliding around to join the hand was already around his neck, the fingers linking together and becoming a solid, firm pressure on the back of his skull. No, wait, that wasn't right. The pressure wasn't at the back of his skull; it wasn't anywhere near the hands that were on his neck. It was coming from the front, where their foreheads were still pressed together, and it was building. A gradual build, becoming more pronounced as time passed and as it built so did the sensation of calm that he'd sensed earlier.

"What… What's happening?" A whisper between them, but unreturned as the pressure suddenly spiked and Sherlock winced at the feeling as his hands reached up and clasped at the forearms of the other man, seeking stability when his whole body began to shake. "What are you doing to me?"

The man's hands eventually released their hold on the back of his neck, his fingers leaving lingering warmth after them as they retreated from Sherlock's form and came to rest of the lapels of his shirt. "Do you promise?"

The first words Sherlock had heard from him since they met; the tone of the young man's voice lighter than his own and still retaining its youthfulness, and full of a desperate hope that made him unable to deny them. "I promise."

A single sob escaped the throat of the other man with his words, his expression one of pain and relief, and he opened his eyes again to look at Sherlock. "I'm holding you to that."

Before Sherlock could find the words to respond, the other man placed one hand on the side of his head, murmuring, "I am sorry for this," before bringing his other hand up and striking against Sherlock's temple with heel of it, and then all Sherlock knew was blessed darkness.

_To be continued_


	2. Why Do We Fall? Part Two

**Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock or any of the characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just too inspired by the show that I had to borrow them.**

Part Two

Time itself ceased to have any meaning after the strike to his head, which had had enough power behind it to knock him out as quickly as possible with the least amount of pain. Suspended in the blackness which surrounded him, Sherlock had the quiet and somewhat ridiculous notion that perhaps the blow to his temple had in fact killed him and his conscious being was now permanently bound to a reality where he would be forever trapped inside his own mind, but he swiftly deleted the thought. There wasn't any sense in cultivating naturally destructive feelings when they weren't needed, fear being an all-consuming one that did more damage the longer it was left and therefore wouldn't do him any good in his current condition.

At least he had an awareness of his own body although he couldn't see it in the darkness, and, with no other sensations on which to focus on, nor any visual affirmations of where he was, he focussed his attention on making sure that everything was functioning normally in his muscle and bone structure. He wasn't in a huge amount of pain and the majority of his body seemed to have come to no harm beyond his head, which ached on three sides. The first being at the back of his head from where he'd most likely hit his head on the floor, the second at the place on his jaw where Lestrade had punched him, and the third at a spot just behind his left eye, no doubt from the strike to his temple.

Wait…

He frowned and directed his focus to the left side of his skull, finding that there actually was a sore point on the area behind his left eye; the young man's aim had been exemplary for he had made direct contact with Sherlock's temple, but that was absurd. It had only been a dream… Hadn't it?

"Sher-" A whisper inside him, a distant sound that held all the right nuances of John's voice even as the noise was muffled and broken, a voice he knew he would always be able to recognise for no one else had one quite like John's. He ached to respond to it, but he didn't know how to for his own voice was merely an exhale when he went to say John's name.

"Sherlock!" This one was much clearer, no longer resounding inside him but feeling as though it were coming from an outside source, the echoes of his name reverberating on his ear drums.

Sherlock tried again to speak John's name, moving his lips in the shape of the word and, finally, there it was! A sigh breathed out after the word was finished and, as his consciousness slowly rose to the surface from what felt like a very deep sleep, his own voice grew stronger and he repeated it, "John," before he found the strength within his own body to open his eyes, looking unsteadily at the two faces which were on either side of his head.

John's face reflected both his intense worry and relief at Sherlock's awakening, Lestrade's own being slightly nervous and more reprimanded. It appeared that John had had words with Lestrade over his rather poor handling of the situation thus far, although Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to be mad over the outcome of their overdue meeting. He had deserved the punch, and more, for what he'd done, despite the fact that he hadn't expected the punch to come from the DI but from John initially. He closed his eyes again and shook his head to clear his thoughts, more susceptible in his barely awakened state to the tangents of his own mind when it wasn't under his control, and fought to regain it with shaky mental fingers.

"Sherlock…" He felt fingers lightly cup the right side of his face; John's left hand given the position of the thumb, as he reached over Sherlock's prone form from his left side. He pushed his face into John's hand, inhaling the scent on his skin and feeling the gun calluses on his fingertips; still there after all this time and showing that he still handled the weapon regularly even if it wasn't fired; maintenance than, before opening his eyes again and seeing a much clearer image of John's face as John's eyes looked back down at him. "Are you ok?" John asked, removing his hand and placing it on the floor beside Sherlock's head.

"Where are we?" The question slipped out before he could stop it, before he could actually _think_ about what he was going to say before anything left his mouth, but there was nothing to be done for it now. He lifted his head up to look around and saw that he was back in the flat again, lying on the carpeted floor and hearing the snap of the logs in the fire. He wasn't in the office anymore, with its grey walls and chaotic mess, but had now returned to Baker Street with John and Lestrade beside him. There wasn't a trace of the other man he'd met, with his soulful eyes and his broken sobs that hadn't been explained, his obvious struggle to balance his relief with his hurt while he was in Sherlock's arms…

"When did we get back?" Sherlock asked.

"Get back?" John frowned down at him when Sherlock looked back at him, shushing him when he went to say something as he made Sherlock rest his head again. "Lay still, you took a nasty bump to your head. I need to check you haven't got any signs of concussion. Do you remember what happened to you before you banged your head?"

Sherlock kept his head down on the floor as instructed but gave John a raised eyebrow at the question as the other man finished checking his eyes, looking for his pupil response to the small torch that John had retrieved from his room while Sherlock was unconscious. "Is that something you really want me to answer?" he replied, not needing to indicate Lestrade who was still kneeling down beside them and watching the proceedings.

John scowled at him, blushing a delicate shade of red when he realised what Sherlock was referring to but looking also privately relieved that Lestrade wouldn't have a clue whether Sherlock was talking about their change of their relationship or his latest experiment, before he resolutely moved on to another question. "Do you know who the Prime Minister is?"

"If I did I've deleted it."

"Do you know what day it is?"

"For goodness sake, John, my memory is perfectly fine," Sherlock snapped. "You'll find that both my reflexes and my balance may be a little off, but that's to be expected when someone smacks their head on a hard surface. If you let me up, I can show you that I'm all right."

John sighed, a little more dramatically than the situation warranted, but Sherlock had always known what it meant; John may be frustrated with him, but at least he was capitulating to Sherlock's will and that wasn't something that happened very often once Dr Watson made an appearance. Sherlock didn't fool himself that that was the only reason, however. When someone was thought to have suffered from a concussion, it was treated as an urgent medical condition until the seriousness of the injury that caused it, and the consequences of it, could be determined. Sherlock's lack of memory loss was a definite positive in John's books and there wasn't any alarm on his face for the moment. He also didn't doubt that, if his health deteriorated in any form, John would rush him straight to a hospital where he could receive more specialist treatment should it prove necessary.

Both John and Lestrade helped him to his feet, John keeping a steadying hand on Sherlock's left arm when he wobbled a bit due to a small amount of dizziness, but on the whole he was physically sound. "How long was I unconscious for?" he asked, placing a hand on the back of his head to test the ache from where he'd hit the floor and finding the area slightly raised, but not enough to raise any worries, and there wasn't any blood.

"Only a minute or so," John answered, moving Sherlock's hand and turning him around so he could have a look at Sherlock's head himself. "You're lucky you didn't catch your head on the corner of the table, otherwise you'd have woken up in hospital..." He didn't finish his sentence, but Sherlock heard the ending all the same.

_'If I'd woken up at all.'_

There was still concern in John's voice with his last sentence, which he hadn't been able to hide despite their visitor, and Sherlock cursed Lestrade's presence in their flat because all he wanted to do was gather John in his arms and convince him that no lasting damage had occurred. Instead he was forced to change to a different subject, one which was more suited to the company. "When did we get back?" he repeated, turning around once John had finished his examination and regarding the other men.

Confusion darted across John's face. "Back from where? You haven't moved since Greg punched you and we haven't left the flat at all. Are you sure you're ok?"

Sherlock suspected that nothing had changed since Lestrade punched him, but to have it confirmed by the person that he trusted the most, especially when the whole thing had felt so _real_ … it almost hurt to remember it, the dream that hadn't happened or the young man who didn't exist. Sherlock lifted a hand to his face, hiding his eyes for a moment as he took a deep breath to try and calm himself, for with his thoughts came an unwanted feeling of loss, something he hadn't experienced since his Fall from Bart's roof where he'd watched John's profile on the street, looking at the crux of everything he was risking to finish Moriarty's Game once and for all. Why did this feel the same?

He removed his hand from his eyes and placed his hands together underneath his chin in an attempt to sort through the tangle of his thoughts, wanting to tell John about his dream so that the other man could help him make sense of it all but unwilling to do so in front of Lestrade. He brought the memory of the young man's face to the forefront though the image was hazy now, distorted, as his mind tried to distinguish between imagination and reality. He had a few precious moments left where the dream would remain clear and sharp in his memory, enough time for him to analyse the details before they disappeared into obscurity. Sherlock quickly catalogued the various points of the dream that he wanted to remember, the first being the room; the desks which had been left open, the items thrown on the floor, the blank spaces on the walls. He didn't recall seeing an exit point in the room, couldn't remember seeing a door that would lead to other areas of the building, but his attention had been so utterly captured by the other man at that point that exits hadn't seemed important at all. He brought to mind the image of the young man's face again, looking at the way he moved, the tone of his voice when he spoke, the feel of his hands on Sherlock's face and body where they had clasped at his frame. The pain of the strike to his head as the young man had forced the heel of his hand against Sherlock's temple.

He snapped out of his Mind Palace with an almost alarming speed; his head ached from where he'd hit it on the floor, yes, but he had correctly concluded that it ached in _three_ places, each very different from the others in their placement on a human head. He heard John's questioning, "What?" but wasn't able to answer it, couldn't find the words as he walked over to the mirror above the fireplace and pulled back his hair on his left side.

Then felt his mind come to a juddering, stalling halt.

There, just behind his left eye. The skin was a red hue compared to his natural white pallor, the area tender to the touch when he raised his right hand to carefully explore it. It wasn't anything he wouldn't recover from, the overall pressure of the hit enough to knock him out but not enough to do any lasting damage. Remarkable. And entirely unexplainable.

"What are you looking at?" John came up to his left side, pulling Sherlock's hand away from his head to place his own hands there and pushing back Sherlock's hair. In the reflection of the mirror, Sherlock saw the surprise on John's face when he realised what he was looking at and also knew that the injury couldn't have been sustained from his knock on the floor. "Sherlock, how did you get this?"

Sherlock turned his head to look at John directly, the other man's hands still on his face, and opted to tell the truth, a truth he knew John wouldn't believe as he was struggling to believe it himself. "I was hit."

When he'd looked at himself in the mirror, Sherlock had seen in his peripheral vision the evidence of Lestrade's punch underneath his jaw bone, the area swollen and red from the impact and, when he spoke, stiff as the muscles worked around the movement of his jaw. That wound was very explainable, given the way that Lestrade was favouring his right hand and the redness which was still there on the first two knuckles where they had come into contact with Sherlock, but the wound on his temple? How was John meant to explain that one when he didn't have all the pieces, all the evidence that would draw him to an altogether insane conclusion?

"We both know Greg didn't cause this," John said and Sherlock rolled his eyes at the statement. Of course Lestrade hadn't done it, but John drew his attention back to him by pulling his head down for a closer look. "Did you slip up in the shower?" he asked; turning Sherlock away from the mirror until his body was towards John's and also where Sherlock could see fully into John's eyes, worry and ire dancing in their depths.

It was a reasonable question, up to a point. John hadn't taken a shower with him nor had he been in the bathroom with Sherlock whilst he was under the warm spray, so he'd taken the only possible explanation that there was in an effort to make Sherlock tell the truth. The fact that Sherlock hadn't had an accident at all while he was showering, as John would have heard it if he'd hit himself hard enough to cause an injury, wasn't lost on either of them. It was also a given that Sherlock would have complained bitterly about it afterwards, had it happened that way, but had mentioned nothing of the sort after he'd finished and John had taken his place.

He shook his head in the negative and couldn't keep his own face from showing his frustration at having to bite his tongue lest he say any more. "Lestrade, we're going to have to cut this reunion short I'm afraid," he said, looking back at the Inspector who had stayed remarkably silent since Sherlock woke up. "I will explain everything to you, but I need you to wait until tomorrow morning. There's something I need to discuss with John now and it can't wait."

Lestrade bit his bottom lip, his arms crossed in front of him, and some of his earlier resentment tried to come to a head again before he visibly took control of himself and relaxed his posture. "Alright, Sherlock. I'll let it go this time, but you owe me a bloody brilliant explanation for why you've come back. I don't know why John's forgiven you, Hell, I'm not even sure I _want_ to know, but… Dammit, Sherlock, it's been over two years!" Both Sherlock and John watched as Lestrade began to pace in front of them, wringing his hands through his hair once, twice, before stopping in front of Sherlock with what could have been regret in his features. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for punching you but I'm not sorry for why I did it. You damn well deserved it, especially for what you put John through, but I guess you had your reasons."

"Reasons I will share with you in the morning," Sherlock replied, stepping away from John and towards where Lestrade was standing. "I'm sure you understand why this meeting needs to be kept secret. This mustn't reach the Press until the time is right, Lestrade. John only agreed to let you come here because we feel that we can count on you to not divulge this. Please don't prove us wrong."

"Argh, you're a real sod, actually saying _please,_" Lestrade said, a small smile tilting his lips. "I won't tell anyone else, I promise. What time do you need me back here?"

"Early would be best. Can you get here for eight?"

Lestrade nodded and looked down at the watch on his wrist. "I know we had drinks planned for this evening, John, but I'm ready to call it a day. Are you ok with it if we reschedule?"

"Yes of course," John said, coming around Sherlock to address Lestrade directly. "I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Greg, but if I'm honest, I couldn't think of any other way to tell you."

Lestrade smiled again. "I'm not surprised. It's not often you get to tell someone that your best friend has returned from the grave. Now, on that cheerful note, I'm off. Try not to do anything stupid, Sherlock."

Sherlock nodded again, and it was as much of a promise as they knew Lestrade was ever going to get before they watched the Inspector leave the flat, his steps lighter and his posture lifted, as though a great weight had been taken away from him. Only when they heard the front door open and close with a resounding click did Sherlock turn to John and take hold of his face in his hands, pulling the other man towards him as he met John's mouth in a bruising kiss.

John's lips parted for him eagerly as Sherlock lightly pressed his tongue against them, seeking entry to the hot, moist cavern of John's mouth, tasting the tea that they'd shared on John's tongue before Lestrade had arrived, inhaling the scent of John's soap from his earlier shower and wanting him to smell different, needing John's natural musk and the more earthly odours of sweat and sex that they'd both been awash in before John's mobile had rung. He knew it wouldn't get that far because, for all the yearning that John was displaying now, he would soon remember that Sherlock had only just come out of unconsciousness and needed to be carefully monitored in case he had a relapse, but, for now, he was all Sherlock's and Sherlock intended to make the most of him.

Regretfully, Sherlock hoped it was regret, John pulled back from the kiss, resting his forehead against Sherlock's in a way that reminded him sharply of his dream, of another face pressed close to his own and of another person's hands wrapped around his neck, so much that he could almost feel the pressure again which had come from an unknown source. Sherlock let go of the breath he'd been holding, sliding his hands across John's back and pulling their bodies closer together whilst keeping the contact between their heads, the air quiet around them as they breathed from each other, the pace slow and calm as each absorbed the feeling of the other and allowed the tension to dissipate between them.

"How did you get that knock on your head?" John asked, and they both knew he wasn't talking about the one on the back of Sherlock's skull. "You wanted to say something earlier, but Greg was stopping you. What happened?" John's hands were on Sherlock's hips now, his thumbs making soothing circles while his eyes held a patience that Sherlock was having difficulty finding himself.

"I had a dream while I was unconscious," he replied, as if that explained everything, which it did in his own head, but he already knew that it would just create more questions for John rather than provide him with any answers.

"Wait, what does this have to do with…? You know what, never mind." Again, John's hands moved to circle Sherlock's waist. "Do you remember it?" John waited until Sherlock answered and, when Sherlock nodded, he continued. "Ok, can you talk me through it?"

Sherlock paused, the better to clarify his thoughts, before plunging head-first into his memory, the images sweeping in front of his eyes as he recounted them and as clear as they were while he was in the dream. "I was in an office that had been abandoned; it was slightly larger than this flat and had six desks in it. There wasn't any power to the computers and there was stationary all over the floor. Someone had been looking for something because everything of importance had been removed; I couldn't find any evidence showing me what company was utilizing the building at the time. Even the posters on the walls had been removed. I was trying to figure out where I was when I met…" Sherlock hesitated, but when John murmured encouragingly he pressed ahead. "I met a young man who wasn't any older than nineteen. He was alone and only had a pair of white boxer-briefs on-"

"Woah, steady on, Sherlock! I know I'm not what I used to be, but if I'd thought introducing you to sex would make you fantasise about other men, and yes, I did do that, your previous experiments don't count, than I would've liked to have known about it first!"

Although the words sounded harsh, John's face was gleaming with humour and Sherlock didn't try to stop the same emotion rising up inside himself. "Don't be daft, John. He wasn't wearing anything more than that and the temperature of the room was just short of freezing, five degrees centigrade at the most. I was still wearing my Spencer-Hart so I took my jacket off and wrapped him up in it to try and stop him from shivering."

"Do you remember what he looked like? Or do I really want to know?"

"He had light brown hair; it was cut in messy bangs over his eyes, but the overall length didn't reach his jawline. His eyes were blue and his overall body-shape was excellent. He was just half an inch taller than you; and of a lean musculature although it was a strong one. He had a deceptive strength in his frame."

John put a finger over Sherlock's mouth to stop him before removing it. "How do you know how strong he was?"

"When I finished putting the jacket on him, he looked at the mark that Lestrade made when I was punched and then he touched it." Sherlock took John's right hand, the same hand that the young man had used, and got John to mimic the action in the same way. "Like this. He seemed fascinated with my hair," Sherlock ignored John's snort, "and when I tried to pull him away he wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and one around my waist, pulling our foreheads together before he started crying." Sherlock moved John's hands again into the correct position.

"Crying?" John pulled his hand away from Sherlock's neck, but kept the other around his waist. "Why was he crying?"

"I don't know. He didn't tell me and I couldn't figure it out from his appearance alone. I hugged him to try and comfort him but it didn't look like it was working, so I told him that everything was going to be ok and that I was going to get him out of there. I wanted him to come back to Baker Street so you could take a look at him and I told him that I have a partner that could help him."

"This all sounds very realistic," John said, a furrow appearing between his brows. "You remember this much of your dream? I don't know why I'm surprised; your mind is just brilliant when you're awake so who knows what it's doing while you're sleeping."

Sherlock didn't entirely disagree with John's statement, but he knew from previous experience that, when he slept, his mind literally had to shut down with just the barest cognitive function to ensure that he kept breathing. "I can't really explain it, but it felt real, John. As I was saying, after I told the man that you'd be able to help him, he wrapped both his hands around the back of my neck and there was a pressure in my frontal lobe, but I can't tell you where it was coming from. It wasn't from the contact between our heads because he only placed his head against mine; he wasn't bearing down on it. Once the pressure reached its peak, I felt something snap inside me and then it dissipated."

"It could have been down to the pressure on your head from the impact when you hit the floor," John suggested.

"Perhaps. The man asked me if I would promise him that I would take him back here, and I said to him I would, before he told me that he would be holding me to it and then he hit me."

"He hit you?"

"Well, he apologised first and then he hit me."

"Wait, Sherlock, stop for two seconds. You promised your imagination that you would take it back to Baker Street and then it _hit_ you. Where and how?" John pulled out of Sherlock's embrace, the better to see Sherlock in action when he went to describe it.

"He put his left hand on one side of my face and used the heel of his right hand to strike the left side of my head. In answer to your question as to how I knew how strong he was, the strike itself was hard enough to cause unconsciousness, and then I woke up here."

John remained silent when Sherlock finished and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing until John spoke. "So how exactly does this explain the mark on your head? The _lump_ you have on your temple?"

"The only thing I can link it to is an undiscovered form of somatoform disorder," Sherlock said, walking around John and pacing in front of the sofa.

"What?" John stepped in front of him to stop his pacing. "You're talking about a disorder that causes multiple problems, Sherlock, and has at least five different sub-categories, one of which is phantom pregnancy!"

"Yes, I know," Sherlock replied. "I also know that it cannot be fully explained by a general medical condition, any direct effects of a substance, nor is it fully attributed to any other mental disorder. I can only speculate that my mind was convinced that what was happening to me was in fact real and therefore, when I was hit, my mind forced my body to react to it, which caused the redness and swelling that you see here."

John lifted a hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes as he huffed out a disbelieving breath. "So you were in the matrix?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. If I had to live in a world where I couldn't presume everything I touched was actually real, do you really think I'd be in this predicament? Here I am with an unexplainable mark on my head, and the only thing I can possibly link it to happens to be a dream where a nineteen year old _boy_ decided it would be a good idea to put it there!" His incredulousness over the situation abruptly took hold of him and Sherlock moved around John to start pacing again, his mind whirling with the possibilities.

_'Conversion disorder; involves the loss of actual bodily function, such as blindness, paralysis and numbness due to excessive anxiety. _

_'Deleted. _

_'Somatization disorder; characterized by recurring, multiple, clinically significant complaints about pain, gastrointestinal, sexual and pseudoneurological symptoms. Must begin in patients before the age of thirty._

_'Deleted._

_'Hypochondrasis; involving persistent and excessive worry about developing a serious illness._

_'Deleted.' _

"Ok, just calm down." John matched Sherlock's pacing before he put one hand on Sherlock's back, encouraging him to stop and look at him. "I know what I said was borderline offensive to you and I'm sorry, but this is all… Why did you have this dream? Do you have any idea what might have caused it?"

Sherlock dropped his hands from his chin and turned his head to look at John, his bottom lip parting from his upper one when he saw the complete sincerity on the other man's face. "No, not at the moment. I need more time."

"That's fine; you know there isn't any rush. And if you have this again we can take you to a specialist who'll be able to help diagnose you, if you're that worried about it. It might just be a one-time side effect of your unconsciousness." John glanced at the clock on the wall, noting the time before looking back at Sherlock. "I'm sorry for cutting this short, but it's late and I really need some sleep. Will you come to bed with me? It's probably better if you don't fall asleep for at least another hour, but I want you close by just in case."

Sherlock nodded his understanding and acquiescence to John's question, needing more than ever the feel of John's body pressed up against his own in the intimate way that he'd only just become accustomed to and perfectly happy to let John lead the way to Sherlock's bedroom. Soon, he hoped, to become less his and more theirs.

* * *

He hadn't meant to fall asleep. Truly, it had happened all on its own despite his will to resist, his fatigue and the warmth of John's naked body beside him working together in concert to lull him into a slumber he was helpless to avoid. And it felt so good, the quiet of undisturbed rest and the gentle sound of John's breathing next to him, although the flickering sound from the light was gradually filtering its way through and prodding him to wakefulness. John had forgotten to switch off the light and Sherlock knew that he did need to change the bulb on the right side of his bed, but when he reached a hand out to look for the switch of what should have been his lamp, his hand came into contact with something else entirely.

Sherlock frowned, his mind quickly referencing the textures that met his fingertips, and with a strangled gasp he realised it was another person's leg he was touching, but John was on his left side, not his right. He opened his eyes, his own anxiousness making his breath rasp in his throat and his heart stutter before that person was shushing him and leaning towards him, removing Sherlock's hand from their leg and coming down to kneel beside him on the floor. The steel floor with the notches in it, the flickering coming from above his head on his right side although the room itself was still bathed in artificial light from where he'd switched on the main lights earlier. All of this was lost though at the vision currently knelt before him, the same man who'd struck him on his temple and was, for all intents and purposes, trying to soothe Sherlock from the panic which threatened him.

"It's ok," the man was saying, his voice low and calm. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just breathe with me, slow and deep. It will stop the panic from taking hold."

"You!" Sherlock scrambled up from where he'd been lying down on the platform and didn't stop until his back hit the wall, his knees bent in front of him to keep the other man away although he hadn't made any move towards Sherlock. In this position Sherlock could see the man better, and he blinked away the flickering to see that he was crouched down, his left foot flat on the ground while his right was on the ball of the foot, a stance that was easy to alter if the situation required it.

The young man turned to his right, the side that Sherlock couldn't see, and pulled out the jacket that Sherlock had lent him earlier, holding it out in front of him as though Sherlock were a cornered animal that needed convincing that no harm would come to it. "Thank you for lending me your jacket," he said when Sherlock reached forward to grab it, the hand in which it was offered to him relinquishing its hold when it felt Sherlock had enough of a grip on the material.

Sherlock didn't reply to the thanks, concentrating on getting his breathing back under control and shrugging his jacket back over his shoulders, noting that the scent coming from it was different now; the scent of the man who'd been wearing it. As his breathing slowed along with his anxiety, other details began to make themselves known to his befuddled mind, such as the fact that the other man was now wearing clothes. It wasn't anything special, just a tank top that was one size too big for him and three-quarter-length combat trousers that looked worn and frayed, secured around his waist with a length of cable from one of the computers, and both of them dyed in a dark grey colour that seemed too much now, matching the colour of the paint of the walls. Too much grey for his mind to adequately blank out on its own; he needed a distraction. "You're not real."

The other man smiled; a small one that reached his eyes and transformed his face into a thing of beauty, contemplating Sherlock's words until he answered. "'I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?'"

Sherlock didn't respond immediately, letting the meaning behind the words wash over him. "John Lennon."

The young man nodded before shifting his position, leaning against the metal barrier of the platform and mimicking Sherlock's position against the wall, his bare feet just shy of touching Sherlock's shoes and his arms draped over his knees, a relaxed posture. "How is your head?"

"Hurting." Sherlock didn't even try to cover it up; the man's eyes looked like they'd seen it already and there was something more important on his mind other than how much pain he was in. "Why did you hit me?"

There was a brief hesitance from the other man, as if he was unsure of how much to say. "It was the only way to send you back." He waited for Sherlock to process his words, five seconds in all, before continuing. "You're wondering where you are, why you're here. The truth is that I have no idea where we are or why we're here. What I can tell you is that this is the only place I can remember without … well, without any pain."

"Why pain?" Sherlock watched the other man's face carefully, and although he seemed uncomfortable with the admission, he nevertheless pressed ahead.

"There are other rooms in this building, of course, but I have only ever seen two of them. This room," the man indicated the office; "is one of them."

"Are you trying to tell me that we're in your memory?" He could hardly believe the words as they left his mouth, but the young man didn't so much as flinch.

"It's as good a description as any I suppose. It's difficult to try and explain something which you have never experienced before. Believe me when I say I want you to understand, but I don't know what to tell you because there's so little I know myself and we don't have much time." A small pause. "There are other ways though, if you find them acceptable."

For what must be the hundredth time in his life, Sherlock found himself enthralled. It felt like the drive with the cabbie all over again; the temptation to know his secrets even at the cost of his own life, the need to understand everything to its core, dissecting from the outside in, and this man was no different. "And what other ways might those be?"

The man shifted where he sat, holding a hand out in front of him in a placating manner as he shifted towards Sherlock's body. When he was close enough, he came to Sherlock's right side and crouched down again until he was kneeling, his hands in his lap. "If you put your legs down, would you be ok with me sitting across your knees? I don't know if this will work, but I'd like to try."

Sherlock did as asked, watching carefully as the other man straddled his legs across where he said he would, and the scent which permeated his jacket became much stronger now, the source directly in front of him and a scent he had yet to name. "What are you planning to do?"

The other man shifted slightly, easing the pressure on his feet and getting himself comfortable, which made Sherlock wonder exactly how long he was planning on staying where he was, before he described what it was he wanted to do. "I'm going to put my hands on either side of your head and close my eyes. I would appreciate it if you also closed your eyes as I think it will aid the process; the less outside stimulation, the better."

"You still haven't said what it is you're going to try," Sherlock said, following the movement of the other man's hands as they came to rest on his temples. The man didn't say anything at first, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, centring himself for something Sherlock couldn't deduce, before he too closed his eyes and waited. As the seconds passed, Sherlock became aware of a pressure building inside his head and its steady increase, aiming on keeping his breathing in time with the man straddling him to maintain his own calm. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to show you," the young man said and before Sherlock could say anything else he felt the world ripped out from under his feet.

* * *

_Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…_

A heartbeat, slow, rhythmic, drifted through his consciousness, like a wave gently lapping on the shoreline, softly and without abrasion.

_Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…_

His subconscious did the calculation for him, forty-nine beats per minute; the sign of a relaxed heart if the person was sleeping or a possible symptom of Bradycardia depending on the person's physical health.

_Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…_

Too little information to make a decision at this stage.

As he felt his mind slowly awaken within him, he became more aware of the state of his own body; the heaviness of his eyelids, sleep-induced no doubt; the rush of blood through his veins with the sensation being more focussed in his arms and hands. He felt the wakefulness rise up inside him, his body ready to greet it, but as he became more alert he was increasingly aware that something was not right.

_Sixty-two beats per minute…_

There wasn't the sound of London's early morning traffic, a usual occurrence on Baker Street at what should have been London's early morning rush hour because it just had to be morning now. It had to be, but instead there was the dull, incessant beep of a heart monitor on his left-hand side. He listened for more noises, but he couldn't hear any sounds of a ventilator and there was no tickle in his nostrils, which meant he was breathing on his own. He was lying on his back on a cold, hard surface that dug into the back of his head, registering that there were no pillows now, no soft mattress for his body to relax into. He felt naked, uncovered, the cool air breezing over him with the shift of the air-conditioning and his anxiety over the feeling climbed along with his heartbeat.

_One hundred and twenty beats per minute…_

He flexed his fingers from their relaxed position, or tried to, but the movement was forced and took too much concentration for what should have been a simple task. The concentration required meant that the action itself was more pronounced as a result, his arms reacting along with his hands and trying in vain to get them to abide to his will.

_One hundred and eighty-five beats per minute…_

"Jesus Chr-…"

The heart monitor's beeps increased in their frequency, matching his own heartbeat perfectly, but it was the sound of another voice in the room, _'male, Australian,' _that sent his mind into a frenzy, the sentences broken into fragments through the roaring in his ears.

_Two hundred and eleven beats per minute…_

"-waking up! He's- … -vitals are unstable! -need to- … now!"

His lungs burned in his chest as his brain overpowered his body, forcing it to hyperventilate when he felt two people pin his arms to his sides, restraining him for the pinch of a needle in his right arm. He cried out in his own head, for when he opened his mouth nothing came out of it, just an exhale which held the force of his scream but with nothing to belly it. The pressure in his right arm increased with the flow of liquid being pushed into it from the needle's plunger, but the weight of a person on each arm, both male from the callouses on their hands and the overall size of their hands (measured by calculating the length of their middle fingers from their wrist and the width of their palms), meant that there wasn't anything he could do to prevent it.

As the chemical effects of the liquid made themselves known, he realised that he'd been given a sedative to slow his heartbeat, to calm his body and prevent it from working itself to a point of fatality, heard the relief in the Australian's voice when the instruments next him communicated that fact. "Vitals… stabilising."

Muscles that were clenched released themselves, fingers uncurling from his palms as the tension ebbed from him in slow, moving waves, a tide that was gradually rising to smother him in its depths in the vast ocean of unconsciousness. A feeling to which he wasn't accustomed flashed behind his eyelids before he was fully submerged, an emotion strikingly raw in its intensity for those few seconds he was aware of it and following him down into his own mind.

It wasn't fear; he'd felt fear before by the poolside. No, this was a new feeling and it was by far the more dangerous of the two.

It was called hopelessness.

* * *

Sherlock's mind released as if he were a tap that had been opened to ease the pressure of the water just behind the valve and, as the compression subsided, his awareness slowly came back to him. He opened his eyes, feeling the air in his lungs as he panted, struggling to regain enough oxygen to keep himself conscious as his eyes sought out the man in front of him.

The man was still straddling his legs with his hands on Sherlock's temples and his face was streaming with sweat, his own tiredness plain to see as he too fought to regain his breath. "What was that?" Sherlock asked, trying to make sense of it all when it felt like his mind had been turned inside out. "What did I see?"

"My earliest memory," the man replied, his eyes dull in their sockets as the pain of the memory clouded their intensity. "I have another one that I need to show you. I'm sorry if it's too much."

As before, the pressure intensified in his skull and, when it reached its zenith, Sherlock felt his mind shut down for a second time as he was launched into another vision.

* * *

_Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…_

The sound of his heart beating was the only thing he could hear in the darkness. It should have been peaceful; a comforting presence in the blankness of his own mind and evidence that he was still alive, not the victim of a premature death. Yet all he could think about now when he heard it was the bodies holding him down and the voice of the Australian who had been in the room with him. The feel of the metal under his back, hard and unyielding against his flesh, and the vulnerability of it all when he'd been forced down for an injection with something that for all he knew could have been poison.

Dimly he remembered his heart rate had been too high; that he'd been hyperventilating and was at a high risk of his heart stopping with the strain of it all. Did it matter that the sedative they'd given him had ultimately saved his life in the end?

He supposed that it did.

His heartbeat continued to resound in his ears as he again felt his own awareness take over. His body was on a much softer surface this time, not a mattress though; it felt more like memory foam, as did the thin pillow under his head, each providing as much support as required. He could feel a small measure of tape that had been strapped to the top of his left hand that was holding a small tube in place. It had been inserted directly into a vein and was no doubt attached to an intravenous drip; although what they were putting inside him he had no way of knowing. His skin was still uncovered but the room was warm and the air was fresh, sucked into the air conditioning and filtered before being released into the room. He couldn't hear any sounds of machines taking his readings, but he knew that he was being monitored because he could feel the pads of electrodes on his head and chest. He wondered what they were looking for.

"Vitals are stable."

It almost alarmed him when a female's voice sounded near him on his right-hand side, but she wasn't facing him and his body was unresponsive. Her voice was turned towards the wall at the top of his head, so she was very likely referring to a screen that displayed the results of their testing. "Cognitive function is normal."

"Did you run the tests?"

That voice…

"Yes." She had turned now, to face the Australian. "I told you, if we're going to do this, we need to do it now."

_'Do what?'_

"All right. Commence procedure one zero one, A."

He didn't have any opportunity to question it, whatever it was that they were going to do with him, but he heard the noise of one liquid being poured into another in the drip chamber that would feed the new substance into him. The noise of the bag being shifted was loud in his ears; they were distributing the two liquids evenly in the chamber.

Then the waiting began. Over time he felt the stasis his body was under lift from him slowly, as though he were waking from a deep sleep and needed to stretch to relieve his muscles. The fingers in his right hand twitched, far more sensitive to his control than they had been previously, and the same again when he tried the fingers of his left, curling and flexing the digits into his palms.

It was hard to ignore the murmurs of the people in the room with him; he could hear their gasps, their quick inhales at his movements, and his breathing began to quicken in response.

Opening his eyes had never been this hard, this arduous, and his face curled up in a frown with the effort involved. He knew that they weren't taped down because he would have been able to feel it, but as the chemical worked its way through his body it felt as though his eyes were the least responsive part of him. His fingers dug into the bedding underneath him, scrunching it in his hands and regretting the lack of strength in them, his whole body now reacting to urgent impulse to _see._ The instruments that were attached to him showed the strain on his body, the anxiety that had overtaken him before rearing its head and threatening to destabilise him again.

"No! Don't touch him."

"If we're not careful he could go back into cardiac arrest! We need to-"

"I said no! It's too late to stop this now, do you hear me?"

It was the words from the Australian man that gave him the final push he needed to open his eyes. The lights from the ceiling were dimmed, purposefully it seemed so that they didn't blind him. Everything was fuzzy; it was as though he had gauze wrapped over his eyes and could only make out shapes of the things next to him. He managed to blink once, then twice, and gradually the film began to fade from his vision to be replaced with clarity, enabling him to calm his heart rate and slow down his breathing as his mind processed the image he saw before him.

The half-masked faces of two people were above him, one woman and one man. She was in her early thirties with crows-feet in the skin around her eyes, and her irises were a cool shade of blue against her brunette locks, tucked back in a surgeon's cap. The man was younger, no more than mid-twenties, but he radiated an authority that was well above his age bracket and his experience was reflected in the stone grey of his eyes, the colour a stark contrast to the red auburn of his hair which had been tied back from his face.

They weren't the eyes of people who were relieved to see him awake. They were cold and distant, flickering about on his prone form to catalogue the changes that were happening, as though he were an animal that had been drugged to test its reaction. It sent a wave of heat down his spine and his breath caught in his throat, fear seeping into his bones and seizing him in its grip, and he knew with absolute certainty that he had to get out.

His right hand reached toward his left to remove the drip, knowing full-well that they were watching his every move but he was not in a position to do anything about that yet. As he was moving, his eyes quickly scanned the room, noting the key-card that would be required to exit his prison and the two other men in the room between him and the door. The distance wasn't so far that he couldn't see the badges of the men who were guarding the exit and he saw a name, blue letters on white, before his fingers located the tube in his hand and began to undo the tape.

He felt the grasp of the Australian's hand taking his wrist to stop what he was doing and his mind went blank as his body reacted on instinct. His hand curled against the thumb of the left hand on his skin in an anti-clockwise rotation, dislodging the grip and, while keeping the contact, slid his hand along the arm to clench at the fabric of the other man's scrubs. Before anything could be taken to stop him, he was already pulling his target across his upper body and met the surgeon's face with what was now a left fist, striking with the first two knuckles and using the momentum from the pull and his own jab to make the strike.

The crack of his knuckles against the Australian's eye socket was nowhere near as fulfilling as he'd hoped it would be, but he did feel a glimmer of satisfaction when he heard the thud of a body hit the wall next to him, knowing that at least he'd given him a black eye if nothing else, judging by the cursing that was coming from the other man's mouth.

It didn't take long for the men by the door to spring into action, other hands pinning his body to the table and working to restrain him as he screamed at them wordlessly to let him go. He felt stronger than he ever had while being here and it still wasn't enough to free him, the men surrounding him determined to stop him as he tried to bite and scratch his way out. Through the red haze that had captured him, he saw the woman had another syringe in her hands and was calmly injecting it into the intravenous chamber, her cool manner completely unaltered when he fixed her with his eyes in a silent plea to not do this. Begging for her help even though he knew every unspoken word would go unheard, so cruel when she could see it and chose to do nothing about it.

It was a realisation that shook him to his core, and if there was one thing he was certain of before the sedative took effect, he knew that if he didn't get out of here soon, he never would.

* * *

This time was better, the speed of his recovery at least half the speed of the initial vision and, when Sherlock opened his eyes, he saw that the young man had also fared better in this instance, although the stress from reliving the memory was etched into his face and his eyes were still closed in a frown. "Are you all right?" Sherlock asked, able to feel the trembling in the body astride him and the clamminess of the hands against his head.

The man nodded shakily, opening his eyes for an instant before shutting them again, the light of the room too bright for him to handle at that moment. "I'm ok," he gasped around a breath, panting on Sherlock's lap. "It's getting easier to manage now."

"What's project one zero one, A?" Sherlock asked, bringing his hands up to rest on the other man's hips. "Have you heard of it before?"

The man shook his head. "No," and then took his right hand away from Sherlock's head to rest it on his chest above his heart, shutting his eyes again to try and calm his heart-rate down.

Sherlock waited while the man recovered; the sound of their breathing heavy in the air around them. "Do you know where that room is?" he asked.

The man shook his head again. "No, before they move me to another cell they make sure to sedate me first. I came around once while we were going through this room, but they stopped and injected me again before moving on." As the man finished speaking the room around them shimmered, like the lights of the aurora borealis had somehow found their way inside and they were sat right in the middle of them. They both waited until the shimmering had passed but Sherlock noticed that the office was a lot less stable now. The walls were beginning to crack, long gashes in the stone that were slowly working their way down from the ceiling to the floor, and they both watched the progress of one just next to them before Sherlock felt the man's right hand come to his head again. "We don't have much time," the man repeated quickly, bringing Sherlock's attention back to himself. "I need to show you another memory but we won't see each other again after it's finished. I can't hold it for that long."

"Hold what?" Sherlock's voice was strident, trying to understand what was happening and all too aware of how the room was disintegrating around them, chairs and desks succumbing to the cracks which had now formed large holes, the items falling into the blackness below them.

"No time," the man replied swiftly. "Just remember as much as you can."

Sherlock had a single moment to reflect that this would be the last time he would hear the other's voice before the darkness took him.

* * *

"Dammit! We don't have much time, Steve!" Although he couldn't open his eyes, he knew it was the same woman from before just by the sound of her voice; the one who'd injected him through the intravenous chamber when he'd tried to escape in the previous memory. He tried to differentiate the details in this memory from his experiences of the others, but there was an urgency in this one that hadn't been in the others, and he couldn't find the concentration to undertake an in-depth analysis of his surroundings in the little time that he had.

"I know!" a man replied, the one who must be Steve, the _Australian_, before the sounds of clicking could be heard to his left. He was typing quickly on a keyboard and then there was the sound of a door opening, the air beyond it creating a whooshing sound as it was sucked into the larger room. "We have to do this right, Jean. We've only got one chance at this." He finished typing on the keyboard. "Have you injected him with the serum?"

"Yes, he's ready," Jean replied.

"All right, let's move him."

He felt the sensation of hands on his body, just two pairs, Steve at his head and Jean at his feet, and they counted to three before he felt his body being lifted from the surface he'd been placed on.

The new surface he was put onto was padded, although not with a mattress but with a gel-like substance that moulded to his frame where he came into contact with it. It wasn't unpleasant as the gel was warm; a steady temperature which had been calculated to ensure that his core temperature remained at thirty-seven degrees Celsius and the padding was long enough for his whole body to rest comfortably on its surface.

"What do you think will happen to him?" Jean asked as Steve finished placing his limbs into the desired position and there was a pause, an audible tension while Steve considered his answer.

"He's not our responsibility anymore," he replied, and there was a sincere regret in his voice. "When GMCB was cut adrift we had already lost him. But I'm not just going to let him die. We've put too much on the line for this to end in failure."

"How long will this keep him alive?" Jean asked, and he heard the noise of something whirring to life above his head; Steve had activated a machine and he had the nauseating thought they were going to put him inside it.

Steve didn't respond right away but he could hear the other man working, his fingers tapping at a screen, checking details and results before he gave Jean his attention. "I would like to say as long as the power holds out, but that's planned to be cut this evening so we can't count on it. Once the backup generator kicks in it should be able to sustain him for another three months, but after that he'll only last as long as it takes for his body to give in."

"Then how can you be sure that he's going to survive?" Jean argued. "We can't come back here after this!"

"Because he's special," Steve said, without any heat but with a vindication that anyone would be hard-pressed to disregard. "The serum you gave him was only an immobilizer. He can hear everything we've said."

"What?" Jean's voice was disbelieving, small and shocked in her throat. "You've let him…" Her voice trailed off, a sigh breathing past her lips in resignation. "I hope you know what you've done."

"Trust me, Jean." He heard someone walking around the room, their shoes clipping on the floor, and he felt the presence of another person leaning over him, their hands on either side of his head. "I know you can hear me," Steve said directly into his ear, his voice soft. "If you don't remember anything else we've said, then you must remember this. The date is the nineteenth of September, twenty-thirteen. This machine will keep you in suspended animation for as long as there's power to keep it running, but you've only got three months. If you want to survive, you'll need to find a way out and we can't come back to help you. But you deserve a chance, do you hear me? You deserve that much."

It was the last thing he heard before he felt the padding beneath him being moved, sliding into the machine at his head and the door being closed after him.

* * *

Sherlock could feel himself struggling where he lay; his limbs tangled in something that was refusing to let him go and his fear a fire raging in his chest. He vaguely felt it when his hands struck out at something that was trying to hold him down, so it was with no small amount of relief that he felt his head rocked to the side beneath the force of a blow, his vision greying as the slap to his cheek sent his mind reeling, and when he finally pulled himself from the fog there was John in front of him, panting and concerned where he lay in the bed next to him.

"Sherlock!" John's hands were holding his head, forcing him to meet his partner's eyes in a quest for the recognition that he knew John was seeking. "Sherlock, are you all right?"

"John," a whisper, broken on the ground. "Where…?" The other man was gone; the room was gone, just as he'd said it would be, the last time he would hear him speak. A strangled sob tore its way from Sherlock's throat, the noise raw and painful as the last vestiges of the memory clutched at him before they receded, imprinting on his mind the date that had suddenly become so important.

_'Nineteenth of September, twenty-thirteen. Fifteenth of December, twenty-thirteen. Four days to go.' _

"It's all right, love, you're at the flat with me," John was assuring him, stroking his thumbs across Sherlock's cheek bones. "What happened?"

Sherlock watched as his own hands reached up and gripped John's head, pulling their faces closer together as he struggled to relax, the pain inside his head receding until he wasn't sure it had ever been there at all. "John," he whispered again, voice cracking around the word and a realisation that he really should have seen before but had been too addled to see it. "John, I don't…"

"What, Sherlock? What is it?" John's voice sounded so calm and reasonable, an annoyance when Sherlock's whole world felt like it was tilting on its axis.

"John," he tried again, taking deep breaths that did nothing to relieve him, instead forcing their way from his body in time with the panic building inside him. "I don't think I have somatoform disorder."

_To be continued_

**A/N: Thank you to the people who have read, reviewed and favourited the story so far! :-) Your support is always welcomed! **


	3. Why Do We Fall? Part Three

**Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock or any of the characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just too inspired by the show that I had to borrow them.**

**A/N: Thank you to the people who have continually shown their support for this story! I hope you enjoy this next part and I'm sorry it took so long to complete. Hopefully the next update won't be so far away.**

**By the way, please don't read too much into the locations which are in this story. I don't really know what happens at these sites because I don't work there (and I'm definitely not insinuating that anything in this story _actually_ happens there for real). I've just chosen them because they're out of the way and, in my opinion, are almost perfect places for something like this to happen :-)**

**I mean, it is fiction after all. Right? **

Part Three

Throughout the aftermath of Sherlock's declaration John remained by his side, holding Sherlock's hands firmly in his own as his trembling finally started to end and keeping Sherlock's eyes focussed on him the entire time, an anchor in the turbulence following his dream. Except that it wasn't a dream; it couldn't have been, not when his skin still tingled with the memory of the young man straddling his legs. Not when Sherlock could still feel where the man's hands were on his temples as he, for lack of a better description, shared his memories with Sherlock. And the memories… _God_, the memories. He shut his eyes against them and wrapped his arms more firmly around John's body, trying to pull them closer together although there was barely a hair's-breadth of space between them.

Shortly after he'd woken up he'd been a mess, struggling to get out of bed from underneath John and saying that they needed to leave.

Now.

Right now, because there were only a few days left and, "we can't leave him there!" It had taken John more than a few minutes to calm Sherlock down from his tirade, pinning him down when necessary and shushing him with quiet lulls that were everything Sherlock couldn't stand because they were the exact _opposite_ of what they should be doing.

They were now lying down with Sherlock's head tucked under John's chin, allowing him to bury his face in John's chest and trace his pectoral muscles with his tongue although neither of them were remotely aroused. It didn't mean, however, that Sherlock hadn't spent the last thirty minutes roaming his hands and mouth over John's body; over his back and around his waist, his lips following the thirty-three vertebrae that made up John's spine and reciting their names in his head as he started at the top and worked his way down. _'Cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacrum, coccyx.'_

He ran his hands through John's hair and along the muscles of his neck and shoulders, tracing the trapezius muscle which connected John's occipital bone through to his thoracic vertebrae, and along to the spine of his scapula; between his thighs and around the soft curves of John's buttocks, noting the position of the gluteus maximus on both sides and pressing his fingers into the muscles, loosening any tension that was present and making John moan with the endorphins which were released once the muscles finally gave in.

By the time Sherlock was finished John was a near-human puddle in his hands, contented hums coming from his mouth as Sherlock burrowed himself into John's arms again and sought out his warmth against the chill that still seeped in from outside the flat. He nuzzled his face into John's neck, breathing in his scent and tasting the salt of John's skin on his tongue, wondering if it was wrong to say that his exploration of John's body had been just a distraction away from the dream and the confusion and distress that it had caused. Whilst it was true that naming the different muscles and bones in the body below him had calmed him down to some degree, (for there was a great deal of comfort in what was actually real under his hands, with responses he could measure and facts that had been tried and tested the world over) his more carnal side had taken great pleasure in mapping the contours of his lover's form, as though each kiss and caress were of his own mark and every single one of them were claims on the body, the man, that he'd chosen to share them with. John himself hadn't dissuaded Sherlock from muttering the different names for the areas he was focussed on, for when Sherlock gave you his attention you had it to the fullest degree, and the intimacy of having your lover _know _you inside and out was a high that neither of them had experienced before.

The closeness that Sherlock's actions inspired in them both continued to linger long after they'd settled down, John's fingers running through Sherlock's curls in a rhythmic slide that made Sherlock want to shut his eyes and bask in it. To forget everything and everyone outside of his bedroom for a moment's respite from all the chasing, fleeing and hunting that his life had become. It wasn't to last, not when Sherlock could sense John's growing curiosity, the need to understand what Sherlock had been through and to help him make sense of it now that the emotional barrage had come to a close. He could almost time it to the exact second, the subtle tension in John's body giving him away as he steeled himself for the asking, figuring out the best way to broach the subject after Sherlock's attentive care in diverting them both away from it.

He decided it would be easier to beat John to it. "I don't have it," he said, the words murmured into the skin of John's neck.

The hand in his hair never faltered from its stroking. "How can you be sure?" John asked; turning his head so his mouth was near Sherlock's ear. "You haven't been tested for it yet."

Sherlock shook his head. "No tests. I know I don't have it." There was a moment of silence. "I had another vision, John. The man was there again."

There was a faint tension in the hand that remained buried in his hair but John continued with the stroking, using the motion to centre himself. "Is that why you were thrashing like someone was trying to kill you?"

Sherlock pulled back from John's neck, cupping his face in his right hand and meeting John's eyes which still retained the tiredness he was feeling from Sherlock's abrupt wake-up call. "He wasn't trying to kill me."

John didn't look like he believed him, his mouth pursed in a frown. "So what was he trying to do?"

Sherlock stroked his thumb across John's cheek underneath his left eye, tracing the line of his jaw with his fingertips. "We spoke in this one but not for long; he said that he didn't have much time. He wanted to show me something."

"Do you know what it was?" John's eyes hadn't yet wavered from his, a good sign that he wasn't just being humoured although that was probably what John was doing. Entertaining the fantasy of a man gone mad to identify the root cause of his illness.

"No," Sherlock replied honestly. "I don't know what I saw."

There was another moment's silence. "Were you in the office again?" John asked. "Where everything had been left out?"

_'In a chaotic and paradoxically organised mess,' _Sherlock thought. "Yes."

"And did you ask him why he hit you?"

Sherlock made himself release the breath he'd held in at the question. "Yes." He waited for John to say something, perhaps ask him another question, but when it didn't come he went on to explain further. "He said it was the only way to send me back."

John blinked at him, the statement throwing him off of whatever train of thought he'd been on. "What do you mean, 'send me back'? From where?"

Sherlock shifted his head on the pillow, bringing his left arm up underneath him so that his upper body was partially leant over John's and sliding his right hand from John's face to around the back of his neck. "I'm not sure," he replied, pressing a kiss to John's forehead. "I can only assume that he meant from the first vision I had of him. I asked you when we'd got back, do you remember?"

John nodded, pushing his head up a fraction to lick at Sherlock's lips before putting his head back down on his pillow. "Yeah, I thought it had something to do with your concussion."

"As did I. The events thus far are leading me to a different conclusion." Sherlock pushed himself up from the bed, tugging on one of John's hands in a clear message to follow, before scooting his way to the edge of the bed and retrieving his tartan dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door, a warmer comfort than his usual blue one. He heard the shuffling of John behind him as he slipped the material over his bare shoulders, tying the sash around his waist in a quick movement before meandering his way to the living room and over to where his laptop was still on the table from earlier.

He heard John come into the living room behind him as he switched his laptop back on, listening as the other man's bare feet smacked against the stone of the kitchen floor. "Tea?" John called to him, the fridge door opening and closing as the milk was taken out and placed on the nearest clear work-top.

Sherlock didn't bother to respond immediately, having already heard John take out two cups from the cupboard before making a, "Hmmm," sound in his throat that he knew John would take as a yes as he finished logging into his laptop. The time in the bottom right-hand corner caught his attention momentarily as he waited for John to join him in the living room, noting that it was only just half past twelve in the morning of the sixteenth of December; it felt far later than that but his own awareness of time passing had been less than satisfactory recently, yet completely understandable. There was too much else to focus on, too many distractions, but he couldn't let himself become lost in them; as with Moriarty's Great Game, time was of the essence.

John soon came into the living room with a cup in each hand, the liquid steaming within them as Sherlock turned to take his own and slip his free hand around John's waist. "What're you looking for?" John asked; taking a sip from his tea and sighing as warmth of it made him relax tense muscles that Sherlock knew John hadn't been aware of.

Sherlock placed his own cup on the desk beside the laptop without drinking from it, turning away from John and bringing up the Internet. "When I was speaking with him he said that he wanted me to understand what was happening to me," Sherlock said as John leaned around him to look at the screen. "What he showed me appeared to be his memories from his earliest to his most recent; he wanted me to know what was happening to me by showing me what had happened to him." He typed the letters 'GMCB' into Google and hit 'enter', watching as the results appeared on the website; the first ten were displayed on the screen, ranging from the definition of the letters through to the various news reports regarding a company of the same name. The first was a link to a BBC news report containing details of when the company went into administration after several of the staff were reported as missing, including the managing director and the chief executive, with potentially as much as half of the overall profits in their pockets before they disappeared.

Sherlock knew differently, of course, but it wasn't anything that the Press needed to be enlightened of.

"'GMCB'," John said, quoting the letters from the website. "I remember seeing this on the news. Why are you looking up a company that dealt with pharmaceuticals?"

Sherlock didn't answer immediately, instead bringing up a new window and loading Wikipedia onto it before typing the company name into the search bar. Two results appeared; **GMCB. For the business, click _here_. For Genetic Manipulation and Molecular Cell Biology, click _here_**. He highlighted both links and brought them up in separate tabs, picking up his tea and stepping back to allow John a moment to look at them both. "They went into administration on the eighteenth of September, twenty-thirteen, to be precise," he said as John finished looking at the pages. "They had one day to clear the offices before the site was shut down."

"Yes I know, it says that here. But what does this have to do with your dream?" John asked, taking another sip of his tea and turning around to see Sherlock standing in front of the fireplace.

Sherlock stared into his cup for a moment, watching as the last tendrils of steam left the surface of the tea in the firelight before he took a mouthful of the liquid, swirling it around his mouth and swallowing it down. "I need to tell you about the memories first before you can understand why I've shown you this. The memories themselves were from the man's point of view and I was looking through his eyes at what was happening to him. It's easier to think of it as two consciences inhabiting one body; one is in control of the physical form and the other is the bystander, able to feel what is happening to the body but unable to contribute to its movements.

"The first memory was more to do with the man's sensorial awareness than anything else. He couldn't see anything because he couldn't open his eyes, but he could still sense the environment around him. The memory itself wasn't pleasant; he was clearly disorientated from the medication that people had been using to keep him unconsciousness and his body resisted it when they tried to wake him up. He would have gone into cardiac arrest if not the actions of the people there with him at the time.

"The second memory had more detail. His anxiety over his location was limited, tempered with the understanding that the emotion itself would do him more harm than good if he let it control him. Before he awoke, he heard that they were commencing a project called 'one, zero, one, A', with the directions of the experiment being given by an Australian man to another woman who was there. They had surgical masks on but there weren't any tools in the room that suggested an operation was taking place, so they were there for another purpose. In total, there were four people in the room with him; two scientists and two security guards."

"Hang on," John interrupted, holding a hand up to stop Sherlock. "How do you know these people were scientists? You said that there wasn't any sign of a surgery taking place, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these people weren't doctors. I'm an _army_ doctor and not every patient I've seen needed to be cut open to confirm a diagnosis."

Sherlock didn't disagree with John, but he was missing the point by quite a wide margin. "Yes, that's true, but you still don't look at your patients in quite the same way as you do my experiments." He went into the kitchen, motioning for John to follow him, and stood in front of his latest experiment before his Fall. He still had a tissue sample which was in a closed Petri dish under his microscope, left over from where he was cataloguing the experiments he could throw away and the ones which held promise. This particular one had long since passed its use-by-date, given the fact that the sample had been a bright pink when he'd had it delivered all those months ago and was now a greyish mass that no longer resembled muscle in any form.

When John came by and looked at what Sherlock was trying to show him, his face quickly turned into a grimace before he schooled it into a look of forced neutrality, as though he were completely unaffected by its presence in the flat and that it wasn't something which should be disposed of immediately. "What's the point of keeping that?" John asked. Ok, so John wasn't able to have quite the same disposition as the man and woman in his vision, Sherlock conceded, but his initial reaction to the leftover experiment was still key to Sherlock's interpretation of what the younger man had shown him.

"Do you see, John?" Sherlock said, placing his cup on the table and turning to take John's face in his hands, his eyes afire in his skull given the flush which spread over John's face when Sherlock looked at him. "Your reaction to this sample was almost exactly what I saw when those people looked down at me on that table. There wasn't a person lying there; he wasn't a patient who needed the care of the people around him after an incident. He was looked at in the same way I look at my experiments. What can I do to get the reaction I want, how do I test for this outcome, what can I do to make this sample, whatever it is, _tick?_'" He turned back to the Petri dish containing the muscle tissue and removed it from the microscope, putting it into a bin that would be taken to Bart's later on for proper disposal. "The third vision he showed me had irrefutable evidence that he was an experiment to them anyway, at least initially," he said, taking his tea again and moving back to the living room. "The man was called Steve and the woman was called Jean. I don't know how they did it specifically, I'd need to see the equipment first-hand to be able to understand its intricacies, but they put the man I saw into a form of suspended animation."

John choked on the tea he'd taken from his cup, spluttering as he tried to get his breath back. "I'm sorry, what?" Another round of coughing as John put down his cup. "Did you say suspended animation? As in 'cryogenics' suspended animation?"

Sherlock finished his tea, placing the empty cup on the table before putting his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. "Not strictly speaking, no. The man was put into a machine the likes of which I wasn't able to observe because he'd been put under again. They opened the machine at his head and placed him on a platform which was lined with a type of gel that moulded around a person's frame to better suit their comfort. Why would they be concerned about his comfort though? Why, if he's just an experiment, would they be concerned for his welfare?" Sherlock stopped speaking and watched John out of the corner of his eye in his peripheral vision. "That was a question, John. I'm asking you to think about it."

John seemed startled by the abrupt change in the conversation, his mouth dropping open for a second while his brain tried to catch up and come up with a rational answer that he could agree with. "Um… Ok… From my experience with you, the level of care you have over an experiment depends on how complicated it is and how long it took you to get it to that stage. By the way, the experiment where you grew mould in the bath _on purpose_ was just foul, Sherlock, but that took at least two weeks of 'gestation'," John finger-quoted the word, "before you were happy with the results."

"Precisely!" Sherlock said, clapping his hands together once and grinning. "The length of time it takes for an experiment to reach fruition greatly impacts on the emotional state of the individual conducting it. So what do you think would happen if an experiment took weeks? What if it was months? Or even years? Would you be happy to throw that away if circumstances dictated it or would you try to salvage it?

"That's what Steve and Jean did, John! They put the man into suspended animation to preserve him and whatever tests they'd been conducting before GMCB went into administration. Steve said as much in my vision; he wasn't willing to throw it away, all his hard work, so he took measures to counteract any potential failure." Sherlock turned back to the laptop and read through the article on Wikipedia about the company, quickly finding what he was looking for and highlighting it so John could see it for himself. "Everyone thinks they were shut down by the Government due to bankruptcy; it even says that on this article here." Sherlock pointed to the screen, knowing John watched his every move.

"Let me guess," John said, looking back up at Sherlock. "You had something to do with it."

"GMCB was heavily embroiled in financing from Moriarty's network," Sherlock explained. "Their primary focus was human experimentation, but I never delved into it enough to see what it was they were doing. Remember that this only happened three months ago; you could say that I was too busy tying up all the loose ends, many of which were relying on Moriarty's illegal funding of them to continue their work. Once the money ran out, or they lost the ring-masters at their head, everything else naturally broke down." Sherlock turned back to John, placing his hands on his partner's shoulders. "GMCB was a company that was, on the whole, ridiculously easy to shut down compared to the other, more complicated hierarchies that I've had to deal with."

"Yes, yes, very clever," John said, clearly not amused. "So you're saying that someone is still under the control of the company in forced hibernation and … what? You want us to go in and break them out? No, they _asked _you, under some sort of mind control, for you to go and get them? Seriously?"

Sherlock nodded, flushing slightly under the intense, very sceptical look that John gave him. "Yes, I'm being serious. How else do you explain the swelling on my temple? The visions? I've never experienced anything like this before, John, not even when I under the influence of drugs. All I'm asking is that we at least investigate it further, preferably before you call the local psychiatric ward and inform them that you have a new patient that needs admitting."

John turned away from Sherlock at that point, bringing his hands up to his face and huffing into them before sliding them down to his sides with his head bowed. He finally shrugged his shoulders, an irritated noise coming from him before he turned back to Sherlock. "Even if I did buy into everything that you've said - and I'm not saying I'm not, just hear me out - how on earth are you meant to find this man? You have no idea where this facility is where he's supposedly being held and, even if you do find out, how are we meant to get in? The place is likely to be guarded due to the fact that they were doing human experiments there; it'll be Baskerville all over again."

"It won't, John," Sherlock said, turning back around to his laptop and bringing up a new webpage. "We have already have an idea as to where they are by the information Steve gave to the man before he was put into the machine. All we need to do is bring that information together and find a site run by GMCB before they were shut down that matches that data." He went back to the webpage which still had the information for GMCB on it, scrolling down the page until he saw the link for the official site. Clicking on it, a new window appeared on the screen and the website soon displayed the company name and their logo, 'Turning potential into reality.' Mentally scoffing at the words, Sherlock accessed the locations of the company which brought up only two sites. Both were based in the south of England, about an hour and half's drive outside of the London area depending on traffic, but one was for its customer care centre and the other was where the pharmaceuticals were processed before they were shipped out for distribution. Sherlock took a mental note of the location, _'Cody Technology Park, Farnborough,'_ before opening up another tab on the same window.

On this one he opened a website for the National Grid, normally only accessible to high-level employees of the business, and logged into it using the information Mycroft had yet to revoke under Sherlock's name when he'd been in exile. Once his credentials had been verified, he had full access to the south of England's electricity, which included a layout of the sites which currently had power and those which were still connected but had no electricity running through to them.

"Woah, Sherlock, hang on!" John had come round to see what Sherlock was doing and was more than a little flabbergasted when he saw what Sherlock had access to. "What are you doing?"

Sherlock couldn't restrain his eye-roll or his sigh of impatience. "I'm looking for information regarding sites in the south of England which have had their electricity cut in the last three months," he said, clicking on the map for the south of England until it zoomed in and showed all the cables running from their central power sources. "The location I found on the GMCB website is based in Farnborough's CodyTechnologyPark; it's where they used to make the drugs before they were distributed. See here," he pointed to a section of the map, "they had their electricity cut around three months ago, shortly after the company went into administration."

John leant down to look at the screen a little closer, his eyes darting over the websites as Sherlock watched him connect the dots in his head. "If we're going to do this," John said, "how do you propose we get there? It's over an hour and half's drive away from here in this weather and I'm not paying for a taxi to get us there."

John had a good point; if the young man from Sherlock's vision was even on the site, and there was still the high possibility that this was only in his head, they couldn't rely on the taxi to wait for them once they found the man, plus they didn't have enough information to be able to answer the most basic and fundamental questions. Was the site deserted or was it, as John suggested, under armed guard due to the state secrets which may still be inside? How big was the site itself and how long would they need to search it for until they found him? Would they find the man from Sherlock's vision at all?

The search itself could take all night, for Sherlock wasn't going to chance going there in the middle of the day and being spotted by any patrols which may still be in the area, so it was going to have to be a midnight call to ensure they utilised the darkness to their advantage. Not that this was difficult for him, having had to make last minute adjustments in his own hunting before the target got wind of him and slipped away, but it had only been a one-man mission during those instances. This time would be different because he would have John with him but, although John was an army man and trained by some of the best forces in the world, he could still be used as a liability against Sherlock if they were discovered. Moriarty's threat against John had hung over Sherlock's head for far too long and he was reluctant to put John in the line of fire again because of a vision that he had no empirical way of proving to anyone, let alone himself. Sherlock was reluctant to share this with John though. There wasn't any chance that the other man would agree with him, or let Sherlock out of his sight for as long as this venture might take, something that Sherlock was glad about considering the changes in their relationship so far.

And he was also keenly aware of the fact that two pairs of eyes were better than one. Having John there beside him would prove mostly beneficial, considering how many times the other man had saved his life when they first moved in together. He just had a few more hurdles to leap across and then they would be in business. "I can download the blueprints of the site to my phone and then we'll have on-site navigation while we're there," he told John, picking up his mobile from the table. "It's likely that they won't have a signal due to the vegetation there and this way we won't have to rely on it. I wouldn't worry about transport, we can hire a car to get us there. I know a place that allows you to pick the car up in advance and they bill you for each day you have the usage of it, plus any extra charges at the end for any damage caused, etcetera. They're very reasonably priced."

Sherlock ignored John's, "Hurumph," at his comment, his fingers working on the keypad of his phone as he accessed the MI5 database (another discrepancy of Mycroft's) and used the on-screen navigation to locate the information held by the Government about GMCB before their closure which included profit-margins, staff rotation and the blueprints of the sites themselves. He brought up the blue-prints of the building, locating all the entrance and exit points with ease and highlighting them on the plans, quickly making calculations of the best ways in and out of the building before downloading the information to his mobile's memory.

When the download was completed he opened up the attachment, scrolling through the main levels of the building; there were two floors in all with the first floor being the ground floor, followed by one more which had been built underground. There were over twenty different rooms within the site itself, mostly on the first floor, with numerous locks and points of entry which would require DNA access to get into certain, more than restricted areas, but this was something that wouldn't be a problem now as the main power for the site had been stopped.

For all the information that had been stored on the security of the site, Sherlock noted that there had been little more than a skeleton staff present there at any one time. A disproportionate amount of guards and armed personnel had been assigned to round-the-clock patrols but less than twenty-four scientists were employed by GMCB; they were all geneticists, according to the profiles that had also been downloaded, but they were all experts in a certain field of the genetic program. Some dealt with the interactions between multiple genes, others with gene regulation, medicine, DNA sequencing, recombination and linking; there wasn't a single person, besides the head of the current project, who had more than one qualification to their name. They had each been chosen for their specified field of study and Sherlock realised that it was a very clever way for the company to ensure that no one individual had access to all the information at any one time, the staff having been monitored regularly with limited interaction between the other members.

The main project leader, a Dr Steven Johnson, was the only man at the site to have access to all the different areas, but his profile picture was missing and his exact role within the company had not been found out by MI5. He wondered if this Dr Johnson and the man who'd spoken to him at the end of the last memory were one and the same.

"Right, so now that you've got the plans of the site and you've figured out how to get there, when exactly are you planning on doing this?" John asked beside him, his hands in the pockets of his own dressing gown. "Because if we're doing this tonight I'm going to need more coffee."

Sherlock locked his phone before placing it back on the table, smirking a little at John's sense of humour and running the calculations through in his head. If they were to go tonight they would need to leave by one o'clock at the latest, with the journey itself taking just over an hour and a half to get to the Park from London. Arrival time would therefore be at a little after half two with a predicted sunrise of about quarter past seven in the morning. That would give them a total of four complete hours in which to find the man from his visions, spanning a total of at least twenty rooms over two floors. Sherlock could admit that the statistics weren't in their favour, especially if the site was still under the protection of an armed force, but he reasoned that the odds weren't entirely against them either and the sooner they dealt with this, the better.

"We're leaving tonight," he told John with a grim finality. "We're going to need Thermoses of tea and coffee, something to eat for the return journey and remember to bring extra clothing. You may need your gun and take extra bullets with you. Whatever we find, this is going to be a long night."

* * *

If there was one thing Sherlock was good at, it was timekeeping; a necessity during his exile as tardiness could not be tolerated, not when people's lives hung in the balance, and this was proving to be no different. One o'clock soon saw the both of them on the road in a two litre Audi A-three Sport, the Black edition, a few years old but still at the top of its class and having the required speed that Sherlock needed to reach Farnborough long before the sun rose.

The snow that'd started earlier the previous day had almost stopped by the time the car had been dropped off at the flat by a disgruntled hire car employee, but the roads had been kept clear and maintained since the weather conditions had first taken the British public by surprise in the winter of two thousand and eleven. It wouldn't help them on some of the A roads if the snow had reached them, mostly because the emphasis from the Government was to keep the motor ways clear and there simply wasn't enough grit for the entirety of the tarmac in the United Kingdom. If the worst came to the worst and the car got stuck, Sherlock had ensured that they'd worn enough winter clothing (including boots, gloves, scarves and hats) to keep them warm should they need to finish the journey on foot, depending obviously on their distance to the site should that happen.

John, being the stubborn man that he was, had not fallen asleep in the passenger seat at Sherlock's suggestion, insisting on being awake for the duration of the trip despite the fact that he would probably be the driver of choice on their return home. Sherlock took his eyes off of the motorway for a fraction of a second to absorb John's profile, looking at the way he was sitting and measuring the alertness of the other man before returning his eyes to the road, keeping half an eye on the satellite navigation to ensure he was still headed in the right direction and noting their estimated time of arrival, which was expected to be twenty minutes from now.

They entered the Farnborough area shortly before two pm, which John considered a fantastic time due to the fact that the roads had become slick with ice and snow after they exited the motorway to begin travelling on the A-three-two-seven that would take them almost directly to the site itself. Sherlock hadn't given the time much thought except on how he could gain it in his favour, speeding around corners through thick woodland and using the snow and ice to his advantage, making the car slide around the round-a-bouts rather than driving around them in an effort to push back the clock.

When they were close, roughly ten minutes away, Sherlock slowed the car down, pointedly ignoring the satellite navigation as it tried to direct him to a residential area and instructing John to keep a look-out for the Park itself while he watched the signs along the road. Eventually, after what seemed an age, they saw snow-blasted signs showing the directions to 'Cody Technology Park' as they came closer to its location, a nervous tension filling the interior of the vehicle as both Sherlock and John were kept on high alert in preparation for what was to come.

The car crept forward along the road, coming to an opening in the woodland to an area which had a chain-link fence all around the exterior of the property. From what they could see in the car headlamps, there was only one point of entry to the grounds (an unmanned checking station which had the gate secured) and the lights around the outside gate's perimeter only showed one building in the near vicinity with the letters on the side of the wall gleaming in the bright light, Sherlock's eyes tracing the shape of the letters which had become so distinctive to him.

**_GMCB_**.

Sherlock stopped the car at its present position, eyes flicking between the CCTV cameras that were dotted around the site, calculating that their car had already been seen and footage was being taken of it. Slowly, so as not to draw any unwanted attention, he put the car into reverse and drove the car back down the road into the cover of the trees to make it appear that they'd taken a wrong turn, using the particularly wide area of the road to turn the car around so it was facing the way they had come before turning the engine off and pulling his phone from his pocket.

He could feel John's eyes on him as he opened the attachment for the blue-prints of the building they wanted to access, comparing the location of the letters on the building they'd seen to the one's on the prints and, from that comparison, finding the locations of the two other entrances to the building that were, effectively, the back way in. Sherlock opened up another attachment, one which concerned the security of the Park, and brought up the CCTV footage that was being taken at that time.

John leaned over in his seat for a closer look, watching as Sherlock accessed the film of the cameras and set them to replay the last two minutes before their arrival in a looping sequence. "If there is anything out of the ordinary in the footage we can always amend it later," Sherlock said when he saw John's sceptical expression. "The likelihood of there being a huge difference between the films is insignificant at best; only someone who knew what to look for would see the loop as it happened."

"Well, you're the expert," John replied, his amusement over Sherlock's actions evident in the smirk on his face. "How long have you set it for?"

"For as long as we need it." Sherlock closed down the programme and got out of the car, his boots crunching on the snow beneath his feet as he walked around the vehicle to open the boot. Inside was all the equipment that Sherlock had asked John to retrieve while he had finished finalising the plans for their break-in; a backpack which held the extra winter clothing; the Thermoses of drink, bottled water and food in sealed containers that would be needed later and, perhaps the most important of all, another backpack containing the torches, chain cutter, wire cutter and his lock-pick. Sherlock picked up the one with the tools inside it and slung it over his right shoulder, lifting the other bag up and passing it to John when he came from his side of the car, before locking the vehicle and turning in the direction of the Park, keeping his profile low as they came into the open air.

The silence of the space around them seemed to press down on them where they stood, each absorbing the atmosphere and the tucking their faces into the scarves around their necks to mask the breath which would have fanned out in front of them. Sherlock turned to John once he'd established that the coast was clear, nodding once before walking to the left of the woodland by the fence to find a more secluded spot. When they were facing the side of GCMB's building rather than the front entrance, Sherlock motioned for them to stop and put his backpack on the frost-bitten ground, pulling out the wire cutter and making strategic cuts in the fence. Once he was done, the wire was pulled out of the way and the hole was big enough that they only had to bend over to get through it, rather than crawling on the ground. Once they were through the gap Sherlock set a fast pace to the side of the building, his coat flaring around him with John on his heels, the both of them panting slightly when they stopped in front of the right entrance to the building.

The entrance was actually two doors that had been chained together to prevent entry, the chain of a fine quality and showing no signs of rust despite being in the frigid temperatures of what was a bitingly cold winter. The doors were made of a steel sheet with two small windows at their head height, allowing Sherlock to peer inside although he couldn't see anything in the darkness, unwilling to shine a torch into the building for reasons that went above and beyond his normal caution. The chain itself provided little resistance to the cutter that John used on it, breaking free and hitting the ground with a muffled thump when it came into contact with the snow. The door was a little more of a hassle, requiring careful manoeuvring on Sherlock's part to pick the lock and resulted in his muffled curse when the pick didn't catch the first time; he blamed on it his shaking fingers but didn't know whether it was down to the cold or a sudden attack of nerves.

Under his coaxing, the lock soon gave the desired thump of the bolt sliding back into the door, with Sherlock taking one door and John the other as they each pulled the metal towards them and entered the interior of the building. Sherlock pulled the torches from his bag, passing one to John before turning on his own and pointing the beam down the corridor in front of them. It was deserted as he expected it would be and when he turned to his right he saw the panel of the wall next to the door which had a keypad and a card reader on it, looking over it briefly before turning and pointing his torch up at the top of the doors and seeing the magnetic panels that had been bolted onto them. Both the card reader and keypad had needed correct entries before the door would open when the building was in use and, with those entries, the magnetic locks would have also been released. Now, with the electricity gone, the lock had proven amenable to Sherlock's administrations, something that he would have had no chance of succeeding at had the security been fully functional.

When he turned back around he saw that John had already preceded him into the corridor, shining his torch on the floor and being careful not to trip up on the items which had been left on the floor. Most of it was stationary; a few pens were up against the wall and sheets of reports which had been left behind in the mass exodus. They had nothing of note on them; financial figures at the most and these were results that Sherlock had already had access to when he'd taken down the company to begin with. He looked at his watch, quarter to three, and followed John down the corridor to another area of the building.

There hadn't been any effort made to make the place feel welcoming. The walls were in the same grey colour that he'd seen in his dream, the room they entered being a basic reception area for the clocking in of staff at their pre-arranged times. The ID readers were covered in a thin layer of dust and the reception area, if it could be called that, had been left in disarray with the telephones off the hook and the drawers pulled out and left on the floor, their contents spread over the desks. When Sherlock looked at John to see what he was doing, the look his partner gave him was one of apprehension, but it wasn't fear; the emotion John was feeling had more to do with the frenzied atmosphere of the place, the pandemonium which had been left behind when the building had been emptied.

Sherlock gave him an encouraging nod, one which John returned with a small smile, and they both continued on through the ID checking to another area that had three corridors leading off from the reception. It was at this point that Sherlock pulled out his phone and opened up the blueprints, leading John further into the building by following the plans, and passing what had been offices and staff toilets. They made sure to check the rooms to ensure they were clear of any personnel until they arrived at a set of stairs which led down to the second level, both of them shining their torches down the steps as they descended.

In front of them were two doors, one in front and one on the left-hand side, again requiring the key pad and card entries for admittance, and Sherlock allowed John to take the lead as the other man opened the door on the side first. Sherlock followed close behind John as he entered the room, hugging the wall and keeping his torch at eye level so he could see what was happening in front of him, and felt his mouth drop open when he saw what was in front of him.

It was the same room from his vision. They had come into it on the opposite side of the platform, on the same level as the desks, and he quickly grabbed for John to bring them closer together. "This is it, John," he whispered frantically, shining his torch around the room and locating the bare patches on the walls, the platform which was to across and to their right, the six desks which had been left exactly as he remembered them. "This is where the first vision was."

"Are you sure?" John asked; his voice low in the room. "You're being serious?"

"Of course I am," Sherlock said, walking to the platform and up the steps, looking down at the spot where the younger man had straddled him. "This is where it happened." He heard John come up the steps behind him and look around Sherlock's frame, could almost hear the cogs working in John's head as he replaced the images he'd created when Sherlock had told him his vision with the reality of it.

"Where does this room lead to?" John asked finally, looking down at Sherlock's phone where he still had the blueprints on the screen.

Sherlock directed his attention back to the plans, scouring them for any clues. "There are two rooms which lead from here. The first one is to the left here," he pointed his torch towards the end of the platform and they saw a door on the left. "The other is on the floor below us and is on the left, over there." Again, he pointed his torch in the direction of the room, showing the other door.

"Ok, so where are we going?" John asked, shuffling his feet where he stood to keep the warmth in them; the room's temperature was colder than Sherlock remembered, the frostiness biting at his skin where the air seeped through the pockets in his clothes.

"There's what appears to be the main hall which is accessible from the room down there," Sherlock said, referring to the door on the ground floor. "This door here," he pointed to the one closest to them, "leads into a room which has only been partially separated into two spaces. It's much smaller than the hall; we should check that one first before moving onto the larger area." John nodded his agreement, following Sherlock as they both moved to the door and looked inside the small window to check the area first. With his breath held, Sherlock tentatively opened the door, hearing the sound of the wind whirring past his ears before easing it open and stepping inside, making sure his torch preceded him so he didn't trip up on anything.

The first thing he noticed was the noise. There was a faint whirring sound, as though a fan were being used on his left and hadn't been turned off, but the sound didn't come with an accompanying wind that he would have felt on stepping into the room. He pointed his torch in the direction of the noise and found a box on the floor, which only came up to his knees and was just about the width of his shoulders, with various leads trailing from it. The leads were bound together in a neat line to stop them from tangling and they went further into the room and around a corner to the right, evidently where the other section of the room was. Sherlock stepped up to the box, laying his hand on its surface and finding the temperature hot, almost too hot to maintain the contact even through his gloves, and he took his hand away quickly before following the direction of the leads on the floor. As he proceeded into the room, there was a faint glow which was coming from the area where the wires had gone, and when he looked around the corner to see where the cables led to, he soon had the reason why.

It was exactly what he'd been expecting and yet it was also the furthest away from it. There it was on the wall in front of him, the machine that he'd heard in his vision when it had powered to life and sealed him in. A circular door, which was wide enough to fit a person inside it, was on the wall (the machine had been built into the wall as part of the building) with two monitors on either side of it, each with power that Sherlock realised was coming from the box in the room behind him. So that had been the backup generator that Steve had been talking about…

He walked up to the machine, hearing John curse behind him when he came around the corner and also saw what lay ahead, and looked up at the monitors on either side of the machine. They each displayed various statistics on the person's health, including blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory measurements; anything that would be needed to ensure that the person was still alive. Below the monitor on the left there was the keyboard that Steve had used to ready the machine for use; the keys were also covered in a fine layer of dust that made his fingers come away with a grey smudge on them from where he'd taken his gloves off and lightly drifted his right hand across the buttons.

"Sherlock?" John came up behind him to his right side, resting a hand on Sherlock's lower back. "Are you ok?"

The feel of John's hand on his back made Sherlock keenly aware of the trembles that shook his frame, his fingers shaking in front of him as he lifted a hand towards the light of his torch. "It's real, John," he murmured, his voice cracking on his partner's name. "It really happened." He looked down at the machine on his right, his heart in his throat as he thought about the possibility of what lay beyond it, the life that had been saved by the scientists of the company who couldn't bear to let their hopes go. But for what purpose?

"Is he really in there?" John moved towards the machine and laid one hand on the cool metal of the door, leaning his head down towards it as though he could tell who was inside just by hearing the other's heartbeat. His fingers traced the lock that kept the door sealed, across the valve that would release the door once it was opened and admiring the workmanship that had been on the design. "The man you saw… These readings are all his?"

Sherlock looked at the monitors again, seeing that the vitals of the person inside were stable but also that no other information was displayed about them. Name, age or gender weren't a part of the information that was being monitored; therefore the only way to know for certain who inhabited the capsule was to open it, if anyone was in there at all. "We'll have to open it to find out," he said to John, turning back to the screen and seeing in the bottom right-hand corner the button to release the valve on the door, the start of a chain reaction that would awaken the person inside once they were free of the machine. Given the limited information on the screen, Sherlock had no idea whether opening the door would kill the person outright, or if they would slowly succumb to a weakness that would eventually lead to their demise, but Sherlock didn't believe that that would be the case here.

He thought again of Steven, the scientist who had been here before him, and his overwhelming resolve to see project one-zero-one-A succeed despite the hand that had been dealt to him. Above all else, the life of the person inside was the highest priority, hence his last message to the man before he was sealed into the machine. That he must survive at all costs.

It was that determination that guided Sherlock's hand, his right index finger hovering over the button that would open the door. He heard John's questioning murmur in the background; was he really sure about this, how could they be really sure what it was that they would find inside? The questions were the rational thinking of a mind that had seen its fair share of danger and something that Sherlock had questioned himself upon finding the machine that he'd only thought as part of a dream.

_"Do you promise?"_

Sherlock shut his eyes briefly, the words echoing through his mind in the voice that had somehow been ingrained in his memory. His promise to help a person who had badly needed it, who hadn't known what salvation was until Sherlock had been there and told him that help was coming, that he would be safe now.

It was with the image of the young man's face in his mind, hurting and hopeful, that he activated the switch which would open the door.

_To be continued_


	4. Why Do We Fall? Part Four

**Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock or any of the characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just too inspired by the show that I had to borrow them.**

**A/N: I know, it's been ages for this story, hasn't it. This part has had more than its fair share of rewrites, but it's finally at the point that I'm happy with it so here is the finished piece.**

**Thank you to everyone who has shown their support! You're all fab! :-)**

**A/N 2: I've changed the ending slightly because I had a new idea of where I want the story to go, so have edited it accordingly :-)**

Part Four

The screen in front of Sherlock immediately responded to the activation of the button he'd pressed, the display changing from the statistics of the person inside the machine to the procedure that would release the pressure valve on the door. A timer was shown on the screen, the digits black on a white background, and it was counting down the minutes and seconds until the machine would, theoretically, open to allow them a chance to have a look inside.

Sherlock watched the numbers as they counted down from five minutes, the amount of time required for the chamber to decompress, he was assuming, but how was that even possible? The required time for a normal round of decompression usually lasted about ten minutes for every one to two hours of compression, so, given the amount of time that had passed since the man was put inside the machine, his body should have required at least one week's worth of decompression to allow his cells to stabilise to the atmospheric pressure of the outside world.

If it really only took the whole procedure five minutes to allow the body inside to acclimatise to the change of environment, what else could they have done in this facility? Or, perhaps the most pressing question, what had they done to the man inside the machine?

The sound of a bag being placed on the ground next to him made Sherlock turn in the direction of the noise, watching as John put his rucksack on the floor and started removing the extra clothing they'd bought with them, including a thick fleece, undergarments, trousers, socks and boots. Before they'd left the flat, Sherlock had ensured that the size of the clothing almost matched the measurements of the man he'd seen in his visions, not willing to take any chances in this cold weather or using the assumption that he would be the same size as he'd been in Sherlock's memory. The clothes were therefore one size too big for him, but had been chosen specifically because the trousers and fleece could be adjusted to the correct size. Shoes and socks hadn't mattered in adjustability, just warmth, so the boots had been waterproofed and had lots of padding, while the socks were made of wool to keep the insulation in.

John had just finished putting the items down on the floor, using the light from his torch so he could see what he was doing, before the monitor nearest to Sherlock started flashing a bright red, each pulse accompanied by a low pitched beep that startled them both with its frequency. Both Sherlock and John looked up at the screen although no new information was on display and, when the fifth beep sounded, the lights above their heads flashed with a surge of power, the brightness of the glow enough to make them shield their eyes against it.

"What the…!" John rubbed at his eyes when the light dulled down to a level where they could see each other again before staring at Sherlock in bemusement. "What the hell was that?"

Sherlock understood his partner's confusion; the button he'd pressed hadn't said anything about returning power to the building, for that was what the beeps represented on the chamber behind them; the system in the machine had prepared itself for the power surge that had caused the lights to shine beyond their natural level, the back-up procedures blocking off the excess electricity to ensure the information contained inside wasn't lost. The button that had been on the monitor had clearly said 'Emergency Release' and he doubted that the small generator in the room behind them had enough power inside it to affect the lights to the degree that they'd seen.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his mobile phone, biting his bottom lip in frustration when he saw that he had no signal. Without a signal of any kind he wasn't able to access the National Grid to see if power had been restored to the whole building or whether it was just this room and, more importantly where the power had come from, a piece of information that he sorely needed and was unable to retrieve from a trusted source; he would have to find out when they left the building.

"Sherlock?"

He pulled his eyes away from his mobile phone to look at John, seeing that the other man's eyes were fixed on the monitor nearest Sherlock with a concerned expression on his face. Sherlock didn't realise what it was though that was causing John's concern, not until he looked at the screen and saw that a single word was displayed along the bottom of it in bold, black letters, the word itself sending a pang through his stomach as the machine began to beep at them again.

**INTRUDER**

Almost as soon as he'd seen the word, the sounds stopped and the screen now displayed various camera shots of the outside of the building, each one recording live footage. Sherlock's eyes narrowed on one in particular, realising it was the front entrance of the building and in the far distance, just in range of the cameras, there were four figures moving in the snow, the flakes kicking up around their feet as they came towards the entrance.

Sherlock didn't hesitate; he immediately began to pack the items John had put on the floor for the man inside the machine, putting them back into the rucksack and closing it, before removing his long coat and scarf and shoving them in a concealed gap between the computers, knowing that they would only hinder them in the events to come.

John watched what he was doing for a moment before he returned his eyes back to the screen where the men were on the CCTV cameras, and murmured a warning, "Sherlock," when he noticed their proximity.

Sherlock, too, had noticed the distance being eaten up between them and the people outside, quickly pushing the rucksack into another space to hide it before he moved towards the exit of the room with John following close behind him. Sherlock quickly appraised the area in front of them as John came out from behind him, creeping out onto the platform into the office where the lights had also been turned on, and turning back towards the door to see that the keypad next to it had been activated with the renewal of power to the building. He didn't allow himself to think too deeply on the reasons behind why the power had come back on, shutting the door behind them where the machine was still counting down from five minutes, and making sure the locks were in place, before hurrying with John down to one of the desks and crouching behind it as he looked at the other entrance to the office on the opposite side to the platform.

John gave him a questioning look once they were below the level of the desk, and directed his gaze back up to the door from which they'd come, glancing back over the top of the desk to ensure they were alone and pulling his head back down. "We can't leave him there," John whispered, his voice hard in his throat.

Sherlock shook his head. "We won't leave him," he replied, keeping half an ear open to signs of other people on their way to them. "We can't let them get access to him, John. The power's been restored for a reason; they must know that we're here."

John's mouth thinned with frustration. "How could they know?" he whispered harshly. "The place has been deserted since the company closed down!"

"That you know of. We can't assume that our whereabouts are a secret here; when the machine was opened it triggered something. It's something we'll need to look into, but our first priority is getting out of here; all three of us." Sherlock motioned for silence when John went to speak and was more than a little unnerved when silence was what greeted him. The men must have reached the interior of the building by now, but no footfalls where on their way to them, no echoes resounding on deserted corridors, so he quickly moved from their position and towards the entrance that they'd come through originally. They both took a side of the still open door, taking a moment to steady themselves as John raised his gun up to his own eye level in a ready position. John threw Sherlock a look, the one that he'd seen too often to count and one that still possessed the same strength as the last time they were together before Sherlock's fall.

Sherlock felt the answer deep in his bones, his blood singing in his veins with an intensity that made his heart pound, and nodded.

John's eyes steeled before him, his training coming to the surface and taking over his body before Sherlock had a chance to breathe at the change. He watched as John checked the corridor for any signs of another person before moving forward to the area that would eventually lead to the stairs, Sherlock staying close on John's heels. Their steps were light beneath them, both of them having had the required practise to ensure that their footfalls remained as unnoticed as possible and keeping their profiles low when they came to the staircase.

There was still no sound of movement above them, but Sherlock didn't allow the silence to fool either John or himself, lying down on his front on the stairs and almost crawling up them in a steady pace, stopping just before his head came over the top step. He looked back over his right shoulder and saw that John was still crouched down at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for Sherlock's signal to come up if the coast was clear, and nodded once before risking a glance over the top.

The corridor in front of him was empty, the lights above them clearing the way and showing the doors of the offices further down which had been left open from where they'd searched the rooms before. He waited for a few more seconds, breath held in his throat, and signalled for John to come up the stairs behind him as Sherlock stepped up and into the corridor. He quickly went to the door of the second office on their right, risking a glance inside and, upon seeing it empty, utilising the room as coverage. Opposite him and a little back down the corridor, John quickly understood what it was Sherlock was trying to achieve and cleared the previous office before disappearing around the corner of the door, both of them quiet as they waited for the approach of the men they'd seen in the cameras.

There! Very faint, just small echoes, but echoes nonetheless. The sound of footfalls, heavy boots compacting with the floor and the shift of winter gear on the people wearing it as they adjusted their stances. Sherlock listened to the pattern of the boots, hearing the rhythmic _thump, thump, thump, thump,_ of several feet which told him the group as a single unit were working together to clear the building. But the rhythm wasn't a fast one; it was cautious, stopping every so often with the accompanying click of metal being gripped in the hands of the person carrying it as they swept the contours of the area in front of them. Armed than, with large weapons judging by the way the footsteps were made and each one made to accommodate the weight of the gun they each held in their hands.

Sherlock moved away from the doorframe and slid close to the wall until he reached the desk that was in the room with him, the sides of the wood reaching down to the floor and providing coverage for him as he hid behind it. The men in the hallway, probably mercenaries at the most because of the way they moved, were in the process of checking all the rooms in the vicinity and Sherlock concentrated on keeping his breathing shallow so he wasn't spotted before they made it to the office he was in.

It was an inevitability that they would be found; he knew it and so did John. Five against two weren't good odds, and they still had to find a way of getting out of the building whilst trying to get back to the machine which must have opened by now, and taking everything else that they'd bought with them as well. They would need to work systematically, taking out individual targets before going back for the person they'd hopefully released. Easier said than done, but they would need to try.

The situation called for a distraction to try and stop them from reaching the room where the man was being held, and as it was a given that both Sherlock and John would be found, he decided that the distraction would have to be themselves. The whole plan was ridiculous because Sherlock had no way of knowing that they wouldn't just shoot him on the spot, but there was the equal chance that they probably wouldn't. If they were really here because the machine had been activated, not because of their arrival, there was a very real possibility that they'd only come with weapons for whatever was inside the machine, not for anyone outside of it who didn't pose a threat. Or he hoped so.

He calculated he had roughly two minutes before the men reached the room he was in and quickly stood up behind the desk, taking a deep breath before he began to rummage around the office. He heard the quickened footsteps of the men as they rushed to where Sherlock was making the noise, but Sherlock pretended to pay no attention and began pulling the drawers from the desk out, taking out the contents and scattering them on the floor. The sound of guns being pointed at him made Sherlock's heart pound in his ribcage, for he had no way of knowing that this wasn't it, that these men wouldn't just shoot him, but his decision proved correct when the one of them spoke to him.

"Put your hands above your head."

Sherlock huffed in a sign of impatience before doing as he was asked, taking in the profile of the other men as he raised his hands to the position demanded of him. He ascertained that they were indeed mercenaries, hired by someone who had the money to do so (given the equipment that they had on them), but also deducing that there wasn't anything even remotely interesting about them. Besides the fact that two of them had been discharged from the army for causing grievous bodily harm to their commanding officers, they were civilians who had been hired for their less-than-moral stances and their ability to get a job done. All of them were in their mid-thirties, with one of them trying to repay the thousands of pounds of debt that he owed, while another was getting ready for the arrival of his fifth… no, sixth child and was running out of cash.

No, what concerned Sherlock most of all was the fact that the men had, for their main guns, silenced MP5's with their secondary weapons being SIG handguns. Both firearms were the top of the range in their class, but the fact that they hadn't been fired yet allowed Sherlock to give a small breath of relief. Evidentially their orders were not on a 'shoot to kill' basis, otherwise he would already be dead, but he needed to find out what their job was and opted for a different tactic. "I hadn't expected Moriarty's men would be so responsive," he said disdainfully, watching the face of the one who had spoken to him as the other's eyes widened in alarm upon recognising him.

"Bloody hell!" the leader said, coming into the room and lowering his weapon marginally as the shock of who standing in front of him began to sink in. He quickly lifted his right hand from the barrel of the gun and bought it up to his head, clicking at the microphone in his right ear and speaking into the mouthpiece. "Sir, you're not going to believe this, but Sherlock Holmes is in the building." There was a pause as the man listened to the response of his employer; but he didn't take his eyes off Sherlock, instead motioning for Sherlock to go to the wall furthest from the door and keeping his gun trained on him. "Understood." The man put his hand back on his weapon.

"So what does your boss want from you?" Sherlock asked, forcing a bored tone even as the palms of his hands were sweating in his gloves.

"Wouldn't you like to know," the mercenary said, turning to the rest of his party who lingered in the doorway and giving them the hand-signal to continue checking the rest of the building, which they did without a moment's hesitation. Sherlock counted the seconds in his head, reaching three before the noise of John being located and disarmed resounded in the corridor, just a few moments before John was escorted into the same office as himself. John also had his hands raised above his head and had a blank expression on his face, marching curtly over to where Sherlock was standing and leaning against the wall behind them.

The leader of the party regarded Sherlock and John with an unreadable expression, lowering his weapon into a position of neutrality before stepping away from them, his men falling in behind him. "Move, back to the reception area. Now."

The order was firm, allowing no rebuke from either Sherlock or John, and they grimly made to do as they were told, hands still raised in the air as they were escorted back to the front of the building.

* * *

_Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump._

His heartbeat… again.

The rhythm was relaxed, a longer pause between each beat as the blood in his veins was pumped slowly around his body, as slow as the breath in his lungs that expanded his chest and re-oxygenated the cells that he was made of. But the whole process was sluggish, unhurried, almost as though it were an afterthought; his body seemed to only just remember that he needed to breathe because he needed the oxygen to live; that he needed his heart to beat to send that oxygen to the different places around his body. It wasn't as fast as he remembered it being, the natural subconscious responses that kept him alive, and he remembered that he'd been injected before being taken into another room by the two doctors that had kept him imprisoned. The injection had likely contained a substance that slowed down his body's metabolic rate; had in fact slowed it down to such a degree that he wasn't aware that he was in any need of nourishment for the foreseeable future, foreseeable only because he had no idea where he was.

_"If you don't remember anything else we've said, then you must remember this. The date is the nineteenth of September, twenty-thirteen. This machine will keep you in suspended animation for as long as there's power to keep it running, but you've only got three months. If you want to survive, you'll need to find a way out and we can't come back to help you. But you deserve a chance, do you hear me? You deserve that much."_

The memory came out of nowhere; the words flashing through his mind in the drawl of the Australian's accent that he'd become so accustomed to since his imprisonment. The words were intentional, for they had been spoken directly into his ear; they were for him,_ his_ words, and the Australian had been adamant in his conviction that he must live. To succumb was to lose everything; all the hard work that the doctors had done throughout his time there, facing the same grey walls and smelling the same recycled air.

His lungs took in another inhale of the air around him, finding the action smooth and without hindrance, and the air which he breathed in was fresh. Filtered, no doubt, and likely from an outside source until it was fed into the compressed chamber, for his spatial awareness had since come into action and he soon realised that the space he was in was just big enough to house his body without the experience being uncomfortable. No matter what had been done for his comfort though, the small space didn't have the capacity for half a day's worth of oxygen, let alone the three months that they had given him to escape his confines alive.

His fingers twitched at the reminder, a nervous flex that irritated his palms and made him want to scratch them, even though he knew the reaction was entirely irrational and there wasn't actually anything wrong with him. The flex told him that he was able to move to an extent now, whereas previously he hadn't been able to move at all with the inhibitor in his bloodstream. He frowned, feeling the lines of his forehead on his face as he processed that information. The injection had slowed down his body's natural processes and it had also prevented him from moving; it had done nothing less than that for the duration of his time in the machine he was being held in. So why was he able to move now? What was different?

He tested the muscles in his eyes, moving them around in his head,_ up, down, left, right,_ and then tried to open them, moving the lids that lay across his vision in a fluttery, non-fixed way. And huffed his breath out when he saw that, actually, opening his eyes hadn't done a damn thing. The area in front of him was black; he raised his right hand to his face and couldn't even see it, although he could certainly feel it there in front of him and when it touched his body. _Face, neck, collar-bones, chest,_ all the way down as far as he could reach.

His fingers brushed the mask around his nose and mouth, a mask that fed the air directly to him and flushed out his exhalation through two sets of tubes that extended to the sides of his head and above him. In his right arm, at the crook of his elbow, there was another tube; this one was thicker than the ones above his head and the end of it had been put directly into his vein and secured with surgical tape. He couldn't tell what it was that was being fed into him, but he assumed it was some sort of provider of the nourishment he would have needed through the months when he was unconscious. From the small amount of pressure there he guessed that it was still doing its job, pumping the liquid into him in intervals to allow his body to absorb the nutrients in small doses. So the suspended animation they'd put him in hadn't halted his bodily function in its entirety; it merely kept him in as much the same state as he'd been when they first put him into the machine, although he still required the necessary supplements to be kept alive. And the serum itself hadn't impeded his cognitive function either, his eyes seeing new memories with another man who had come into his vision. Interesting…

Eventually, though the process was a slow one, all the areas of his body were accounted for and each of them was responsive to the sensation of his hand on his body, the nerves coming alive under his fingertips and making the synapses in his brain fire under the sensory bombardment. Yes, he was very much alive and now in control of his body, that much was clear to him, but he was at a loss of what to do. He tried to stretch his body out and found that his head was almost to the top of the chamber he was in, his hands pressing flat against the metal above his head (being careful not to disturb the tubes which gave him his air supply), and below him at his feet the outcome was very much the same. His toes pressed into the door there, using them as an extra pair of hands as he wasn't able to reach the space in the position he was in, lying flat as he was, but found nothing but a flat, circular surface under the sensitive pads of his flesh.

Having exhausted the limits of what he was able to accomplish in the space provided to him, he put his body back into the position it had been in before but was unable to quieten the frantic workings of his thoughts. He knew he had to get out otherwise he would die; there was no question of that, but the door hadn't opened yet and he had no way of knowing how long it was that he was going to be kept inside.

Another thought crept from the back of his mind, hesitant and but not wholly unwelcome. It was a long shot but, as he was conscious now and he hadn't been before, he knew that his sudden wakefulness must have come from an outside source because the machine itself had not been programmed to wake him up without outside intervention, even when the three months was finished. After that time it would have run out of power and he would have been stranded inside it. So maybe, just maybe, someone was there and they wanted to get him out.

There was a flicker on the glass surface in front of him, distracting him with a single flash of blue light, before the whole of the chamber was bathed in the same fluorescent colour coming from LEDs which lined the full length of the machine. He had to close his eyes against the light, the bright flash hurting them in its intensity, and underneath his feet he felt the whoosh of air rush into the chamber as the door was finally released.

He exhaled sharply at the sensation of cold air touching his skin, the warmth of the machine dissipating in a matter of moments as the fresh air from outside flooded the small space he was in. Experimentally, he lifted his hands to his face and removed the face mask, cautiously taking a lungful of air and coughing when the dregs at the back of his throat were irritated with the movement, and reaching down to the drip in his right arm to carefully remove it from his flesh. He lifted his head and looked down the length of his body, seeing another room from between his feet and remembering that the surface he was lying on was on a roller system. He reached his hands above his head and gave a small, soft push, testing the mobility of the surface. On finding it amenable to his movements, he gave a short, deep push to the wall above him, giving himself enough momentum for the surface to slide from the machine and out into the room without him tumbling from it.

The lights were much easier on his eyes now, not the garish blue from the machine, but a white glow that illuminated the whole of the room around him. He turned his head from one side to the other, using the extra room to test his mobility before pushing his arms beneath him and extending them, forcing himself up to a reclining position to better understand his environment.

It was bitterly obvious that it was cold; much colder than he'd anticipated because his skin had broken out into goose-bumps and his breath wafted out in front of him, a warm mist in the air of the room. He was alone now, but his eyes quickly narrowed in on the evidence of other people who had been with him in what he knew were just moments before. Next to him he could see the smudges of fingerprints on the keyboard, left over by the dust which had collected there and had now been disturbed after three months of no use. When he looked down at the floor around him, there were leftover wet shoe prints on the floor; two people, he saw, because there were only two sets of prints. But why had they left?

Gingerly, he pushed himself to an upright position, feeling the stretch of his muscles in his body with his movement as he flexed them to try and ascertain how much use he would have of them. They were aching but he hadn't expected anything else, swinging his legs around to the right and placing his feet on the floor. His eyes looked down at the shoe prints again, finding the overall path of the people who had freed him and following it from around the corner of the room to the machine, and back out again. He frowned, seeing that one person had disturbed the dust close to the computers on one side of the room in two places and that the computers themselves had recently been moved. What had they been doing?

He tested his weight on his legs to ensure he wouldn't fall over, using his hands to push himself up from the machine until he was upright for the first time in three months. A little unsteady perhaps, but nothing that he couldn't manage. He walked over to where the person had been by the computers before kneeling down and pushing one of them to the side until he could see what had been put there, feeling his breath catch in his chest when he saw what had been hidden.

The rucksack was full of clothing which was almost his size, and the coat and scarf he found obviously weren't for him but matched the sizing of the only other person he remembered besides the people who'd already been in the facility with him. He pulled out the clothes meant for him from the rucksack, putting them on with a quick efficiency and breathing a small sigh of relief when the warmth from the material began to stop the shivering his body had been doing to try and combat the cold. He took the scarf and coat from the hiding spot, his skin feeling the remaining warmth of the person who'd been wearing it which told him that it had only been taken off recently. Not long enough for the cold to take hold on the areas which had been wrapped close to the person's body.

Gathering the items close to him, he turned back to the machine and saw that the screen was showing CCTV footage of the surrounding area outside the building, but there wasn't anyone in the footage now. He put the clothes and rucksack on the machine next to him, accessing the CCTV system and changing the input from outside the building to the cameras which were inside it, frowning again when he found what he was looking for.

There were the two people who had come to get him; he recognised the taller of the two men who'd come to get him, remembering him from his visions when he'd been inside the machine, but he didn't recognise the other man, changing camera angles and watching as they were escorted to the front of the building. They were clearly being moved against their will by the four men who were with them, their hands in the air as they ascended the staircase to the ground floor of the building, an area he'd never seen before. From the look on the two men's faces, they weren't holding out much hope for what would happen to them now that they'd been found.

_'I've need to get to them.'_

He quickly turned away from the screen and walked around the corner of the room until he saw the main door, walking up to it and looking out the window to see the card reader. It was flashing a red light in regular intervals which meant that the door was locked and he didn't have the card or the code on him to release it. He cursed under his breath, walking back to the computer and hacking into it to try and find another way out.

He took down the CCTV footage on the monitor, bypassing the firewalls and security on the system until he located the blueprints of the entire building. It became apparent that he wouldn't be able to walk through the building like the others had done without being spotted eventually; he would need to utilize every advantage available to him and remaining hidden was the best way to do that. He looked up at the roof above him, his focus taking in the size of the ventilation grate which was just above the machine with an idea forming inside his head. He turned back to the monitor and brought up the plans of the building again, uploading the images of the ventilation shafts which ran throughout the entire building and taking mental notes of the way to the front entrance and the positions of the grates which were close to that area.

Leaving the clothing and rucksack on the machine, he took off his boots and climbed onto the tray to pull the grate from the opening to the shaft. It came away with little resistance and he put his hands into the opening, finding a handhold on both sides, and pulled himself up into the shaft. He took a moment to orient himself in the darkness, bringing the image of the plans to the forefront of his mind, and began to crawl his way through the small space in the direction that would take him to the front entrance where the two men were being held.

* * *

"You're going to tell us what you're doing here," the leader said, his gun levelled at Sherlock's head where both John and Sherlock had been told to kneel on the floor, "and no funny business. We're not under obligation to keep you alive."

Sherlock fought not to roll his eyes at the thinly veiled threat, looking around the room they were in as though he were bored of the whole thing, when in truth he was looking for a way out of this problem. They were back in the reception area of the building with their hands tied behind their backs, the mercenaries having used plastic ties rather than handcuffs, and they were facing towards the entrance with the four mercenaries standing in front of them, three of them standing behind their leader and watching the questioning.

"We're looking for information," Sherlock said after a brief pause, deciding that telling the truth as much as possible couldn't do them any more harm than what they already found themselves in.

"What information?" the man asked, his voice demanding an answer that Sherlock didn't want to give him.

Sherlock sighed. "I found out that James Moriarty used to fund this organisation before he committed suicide. I've come back to see if I can find out what he was funding so I can try and put a stop to it."

The leader didn't say anything to Sherlock's statement, narrowing his eyes in what was a clear attempt to try and pick out the lie. "We know you found the machine," he said eventually, "now tell us what you're doing here, or I'll have to force the matter."

Sherlock wasn't surprised by that; the machine was obviously being monitored by powerful people outside of the company so when it was activated they would have been informed of it, hence the alarmingly quick response from these men. He didn't even put it past them that they already knew when he and John had arrived at the Park, making their own way here since Sherlock first broke into the building. But they had one thing on their side, at least. The mercenaries didn't actually know what had brought Sherlock and John here to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't be questioning them.

"Yes, we found a machine that still had power," Sherlock said, completely unapologetic of his actions. "I wanted to know what was inside it, so I activated the decompression sequence to open the door."

"And you've no idea what was inside?" the leader asked him.

Sherlock shook his head. "I could see from the displays that there was possibly a human being held there, but I don't know whether or not that's true. The decompression sequence was still being finished when we left."

The mercenary remained silent, apparently believing everything Sherlock had said thus far, but Sherlock didn't allow that small victory to cloud his judgement. He wanted to look over at John to see how he was faring under the pressure, but knew that to do so would look as though he was having a guilty conscience. No, it was better to keep eye contact with the leader and his men, just in case any of them got any ideas.

"How long was the timer set for the decompression?" the leader asked, his focus on Sherlock unwavering.

"Thirty minutes," Sherlock said, not hesitating in the slightest at the lie. "The door won't have opened just yet, if it ever opens at all. There's a high possibility that the person inside is dead anyway."

Sherlock could see it in the man's eyes that he didn't believe him, but he also saw that the ex-army soldier knew that he no physical proof of whether or not Sherlock was actually lying. "Keep an eye on the entrances," he said to his men, keeping his eyes on Sherlock. "If he's out, he could be anywhere. Assume that he's hostile and shoot to kill if you have to." He turned back to Sherlock, taking out his handgun and pressing it against Sherlock's head. "One chance. Give us the information you came here for, otherwise you'll be leaving in a body-bag."

As the soldier was speaking, Sherlock felt a spike in his awareness that shot up his spine that had nothing to do with the almost crippling fear at having a gun pointed to his head, the feeling reminiscent of something he used to have when he was near the end of finding a target, when he was closing in on them for the final confrontation. He felt the hairs on his arms rise in response to the feeling, putting all his focus on keeping a straight face so the leader wouldn't see the change when Sherlock finally saw him.

The man from his vision was behind the mercenaries and just to the left of them, having dropped down from the ceiling using an open ventilation shaft grate, and was quickly advancing on the first man on the far left. The leader ordered his men to watch the entrances to the reception area while facing Sherlock and John, but the entrances were facing away from the area where the man had dropped down, so they weren't prepared for the assault when it actually came.

The man reached around the face of the first mercenary he came to, snapping his neck with a twisting motion before moving onto the next man, punching him in the throat when the mercenary turned to look at what was happening to his team member, crushing his windpipe and killing him. As the third mercenary turned his MP5 to take aim, the young man had already taken the SIG handgun from the second mercenary's holster, disengaged the safety and fired at the third one, shooting him between the eyes and turning towards the leader who had finally looked to see what was happening to his men. The final result happened so fast that Sherlock barely had time to blink before it was all over, with the man from his vision stepping into the leader's space and pushing the man's handgun to the side away from Sherlock and John, sliding his own handgun up until the barrel was pressed against the leader's chest.

Sherlock kept his eyes open for the kill, watching as the other man pulled the trigger that sent a bullet through the heart of the leader's chest. Not as quick a death as a bullet through the head, but when the mercenary's body slumped where he stood, the younger man took his weight for a moment and both Sherlock and John visibly startled when heard him speak for the first time, his voice heavy with regret. "I'm sorry."

After the mercenary died, the young man lowered his body to the ground and laid it down so the man was on his back, engaging the safety on the weapon he still held and dropping down beside the dead mercenary to search his pockets. Sherlock watched him, his own shock trying to rear up inside his head; here in front of him was the man from his visions, the same person who had asked him for his help in freeing him from the company. Now that he was actually here, Sherlock felt at a complete loss of what to say or do, with the reality of it threatening to overwhelm him.

Sherlock turned to John at his side, seeing that his partner was completely unflustered at having seen four men die in less than two minutes, although his eyes were hard; he was clearly wondering what they were going to do now, with their hands tied behind their backs and in the company of a stranger who was more than adept at taking out dangerous and armed men, using a combination of his bare hands and skilled weapons training. Sherlock shared his concern, but was also hopeful of a different outcome.

The man pulled out a Leatherman from one of the pockets of the leader, flipping the knife up and turning to look at Sherlock and John beneath the bangs of his fringe. "I'm sorry you had to see this," he said as he came around to the back of them, taking the knife and sliding it under the plastic ties to free them both from the restraints.

"They would have killed us," Sherlock told him, meeting the eyes of the man when he came back around to the front and knelt down beside them. "You did what we would have done, given the chance." He looked over to John, seeing his partner rubbing his wrists and regarding the young man in front of them with more curiosity than fear, a good sign.

"You're the same man from Sherlock's visions?" John asked the young man, drawing the other's attention to him.

The other man nodded once, clasping his hands together on his knees. "Yes. But I don't think we'll have any time for further questions just now. When these men don't report back, their employer will send someone to investigate. We need to leave this place before someone comes for them."

"No, hang on," John said, pushing himself up to his feet and keeping his voice soft but brooking no argument. "You've just killed four armed men by yourself and you've been in that machine for three months after being held captive at this facility. Can you at least tell us who you are?" Sherlock also got to his feet, watching the interaction between the two men as he stepped off to the side, maintaining a neutral position between them.

The young man waited for John to finish before also pushing himself up, coming just above John's head height although his physical form was diminished, as though the exertion from the killing had exhausted him. "I don't know," the man said, his mouth turning up into a sad smile. "I don't remember anything else besides this place." He turned to look down at the bodies lying next to them, their life's blood pooling on the floor, before turning back to Sherlock with his face flashing a moment of pain until he schooled his features. "I didn't want this to happen."

Sherlock stepped towards the other man, noting his appearance as he went into the younger man's personal space and seeing that the man had left his shoes off but had put on the rest of the clothes that they'd bought with them. "You don't need to be sorry," he admonished gently. "You did what you had to do to keep us safe."

The younger man stared up at him for a moment before taking his eyes away and looking at John, seeing the concern written across both of their faces. "Are you here to take me away?" he asked, his voice holding a faint quiver that he tried to hide. "Are we going back to Baker Street?"

"Yes, that's why we're here," John answered, taking Sherlock by surprise. "Sherlock thinks it's the best place for you right now and we have everything we need at the flat. You just saved our lives, so the least we can do is try to help you get your memory back." John walked up to the man, holding out his right hand. "I'm Doctor John Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes."

The young man smiled, taking John's hand in his own and shaking it firmly. "Yes, I know." He didn't seem to notice John's expression of puzzlement and it was an emotion that Sherlock shared. If he couldn't remember anything outside of this facility, than why did he know their names?

_To be continued_

**A/N: The fight scene between the man and the mercenaries is my nod to a character that has inspired the creation of my OC since the very beginning - if you know who it is, or recognise the scene, please don't say anything in a review as I will reveal his identity when the time is right ;-)**

**Thanks everyone!**


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